Morning journal and courier., 1881-11-29
Tuesday Morning. Nov. s9, 1881.
THE NEW SOUTH.

The Atlanta Exposition was planned chief ] ly for the benefit of the cotton interests oi
 the South, but the southern railroad compa nies went to work and have made show oi 1 the resources of the regions through which l they run which attracts more attention than all the other departments of the Exposition. 1 Their collections of minerals, woods and ag
 ricultural products are astonishing to most o1 1 the visitors, who have no definite idea of the
 resources of the South. MT. Lorine, Com missioner of Agriculture, was so much sur
 prised at the display of specimens of mine
 rals and woods that he proposed that the collections should be carried to Washington after the Exposition closes and placed there i on permanent exhibition under the charge of l the department of agriculture. Most of the railroads it is said are not only willing to give their displays for such purpose, but some of them desire to make collections that are more nearly complete indications of the resources of their belts of country.
 Mr. Walter Page writes to the Boston Post that 'tnow for the first time southern people
 themselves realize, and the whole world sees,
 that this is not only the least developed por-
 ton of the United States. but also by far the
 richest both in the variety and in the extent
 of it's resources And he also gives
 some facts about those resources
 which are not generally known.
 The most wonderful exhibit is that of the
 Richmond and Danville railroad. which tra-
 verses the country from Richmond, Virginia,
 through Danville, Virginia, and Charlotte,
 North Carolina, to Atlanta. It crosses very
 rich region in the western part of North
 Carolina. Here there are about fifty gold
 mines now worked. Recently an English
 company of great wealth has reopened the
 famous Gold Hill mine in Rowan county. the
 deepest and most profitable gold mine in the
 Atlantic States. It is now 75O feet deep. Be- fore the war this mine yielded $3,ooO,o ,o0o. A single copper mine, the Ore Knob mine, in .Ashe county, employs 600 hands and yielded last year $1, 600, ,0OO worth of pig copper.
 Conrad Hill mine, in Davidson county, prom
 ises to be equally productive of copper, and it has for forty years been one of the most profitable gold mines in the State. There are not less than sixty profitable mica mines in six counties, Mitchell, Yancy, BuDcombe
 
 supply almost exclusively the market of America, of Canada, and in part of Europe The yield is about 30, GOO pounds per annum, and this could easily be doubled if there were a sufficient demand. High grade iron ore is distributed from Halifax to Cherokee coun- ties. A Pennsylvania firm has recently spent three quarters of a million in purchasing one of these beds. and in reaching it by rail. Other Pennsylvania companies are beginning to look to these deposits for their iron. Mari is perhaps the most valuable and important mineral in the State. It underlies the sur face of thirty counties-nearly one-third the area of the whole State. The precious gems found in North Carolina are worth millions Every precious stone except the turquoise has been discovered there. And of the 126 species of wood found in the southern States 112 are found in North Carolina
 Other astonishing exhibits of the products of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida are made, and Mir. Page finds in them evil dence that all the idle capital of New Eng land and great deal of labor can find prof itable employment in the South. He thinks it doubtful if the West, even in former years, offered such inducements for invest ments and for immigrants, and declares that he could enumerate score of opportunities for investing money where it would yield from 25 to 100 per cent. He concludes his letter as follows: s'This is in all essential particulars new land. Now that it's profitable wealth has been discovered, it will fast be made actual. An era of develop ment is setting in not less surely than the era of western development begun two de- 1 cades ago." Mir. Page may be little too and he may not be. There are great chances in the South for men with brains and money to take ad- vantage of them.