Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1880-03-28

admit, but we would present to them
and to the world some OF the POSI-
bilities of Knox Vile, and hope that
with their effort and favor, combined
with capital from abroad, these may
develop into certaiDties, into accom-.
plished facts.
The peculiar topography OF East
Tennessee places Knoxville as focal
point between two singular breaks in
the Cumberland mountains and SINH
lar ones In the great Unakas OF North
Carolina, Take map and mark |
line from Emery Gap to Wolf Creek
another from Careyville TO Chilhowee
postoffice ON the Little Tennessee, ana
Knoxville is the centre of the cross
thus formed. AT no other points In
these great mountain systems do so
parallel breaks occur; they are the nat
ural railroad routes; nature cut down
the hard rock to enable man
the easier to lay his iron way through
her grand uppeavals. and thence
to reach the accana there hidden
and draw for his enrichment the wealth
which she had for tens OF thousands
OF years been segregating In the CAL
lous states aud GRANTEES. For more
than forty years the idea Of great
highway from the OHIO TO the east At
Iantic has been the theme OF writers
and speakers; numbers of engineers
have stretched the chain and leveled
the instruments to find the best and
cheapest route; every effort that en-
gineering skill could devise was used
to prove Cumberland Gap TO be that
route. Nature ordered otherwise.
With the ssgacity OF skillful and
unprejudiced engineer Gen. Burnside
selected the route low occupied by the
Cincinnati Southern, recommended
the construction thereon OF railroad
to Knoxville, and would have built 1t
but for the opposition of Secretary
Stanton, 1t is built now to Emery
Gap and the short link to Knoxville
will soon also be fact And, too, in
short time the southern point OF the
diagonal line will be reached by the
Western North Carolina railroad.
Then rumor assures the public that
the Blue Ridge road will come to US
from Georgia, winding its way down
the Little Tennessee, and We may hope
that the alliance between Msssrs'
Newcomb and McGhee and Wilson ex'
tends to the early construction of the
Knoxville and Ohio road to connect
with louisville. Whatever may be
the present apparent status OF affairs
the near future must see the comp E.
ton Of all these lines. And we can
add OF the road from Johnson City to
the Cranbary iron mines in North
Carolina.
These roads to the north, south, east
and west will give to Knoxville "ahun-
dant and cheap transportation" They
will enable her to receive the greatest
quantity, the best quality and the
greatest variety OF iron ores Of any
place In the United States, not except
Ing Pittsburg. On the line of the
Southern Iv~s, II IF the extended
Knoxville and Ohio, and at OV"'
of iron-the principal ore used in
Wales; all along the foot Of Walden's
riIUa Ia a vain n fOooilifa,ons rod 49,,
attic, from three to FIVE feet thick; at
various points little farther south are
other veins of the same ore; then, in
what is called, near Cleveland, White
Oak mountain, is a continuous vein,
| and at some places series OF veins, OF
the same ore, but somewhat better in
quality; then, in hundreds of hills
throughout East Tennessee ATE beds o.
| imonite-commonly called brown
hematite; and from the roads which
| are TO pierce the wild mountains o
North Carolina, will come the Bes
semer steel ores; the msgneties, thu
| specular ores and the true hemalites
Knoxville is the hub to which these
lines concentrate, to which these ores
must come for transport 10 the mar.
kets OF Chattanooga, Louisville and
Cincinnati. Shall they be allowed to
go there? ought they not to be stopped
here, and here the crude material
formed into the manufactured article
before it is sent to the great cities.
The iron manufacturers of the city
OF Pittsburg bring their ores from
many directions and great distances
In the yard OF Graft, Bennett d Co.
there was, last fall, and is yet, ores
from Algeria, in Africa, from Lake
| superior and from Ohio and Penn
sylvania. The Edgar Thompso g. eel
works and the Lucy furnaces bring
heir ores from Escanabia. on Lake
Michigan, from Maryette. and L'Anse
on Lake Superior, by water to C'eve
land, and thence ny rail $50 miles to
Pittsburg. They bring the greater
portion of their coke from Councils.
vile, distant 81 miles by rail; they
sometimes transport by water, but 1t
is unreliable-'frozsn up In winter
and dried up in summer" The price
for these Lake Superior ores, at the
furnaces. ranges from $l2 to SIS per
ton; the cost of their coke Is about s
cents per bushel
From Knoxville to .Johnson City is