The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1881-02-03
PITTSBoRO, n. c., Jan. %, 81

Editor Of the Rerjepc:
DEAR SRI notice in your pape of
the Dist an article headed AN Inn or
tant Natter" And you go on to say
that j. d. Imboden, of Virginia, and
A. Z. Hyndman, of Pennsylvania. rep
~resentlng large interests in Southwe.-
tern Virginia and Western North Caro-
lima, were in Wilmington for the pur-
pose of examining the bar at Smithville
to ascertain its capacity for vessels to
carry their iron, or Bessemer steel,
which they propose to make from iron
ore in Mitchell county, in this State.
And in order to make this Bessemer
steel in Mitchell county they propose to
bring coal from Bristol, in Virginia, t.
Mitchell county by railroad. [ am
very glad to see such a movement, bur
these gentlemen are perhaps not aware
that within half a mile of the present
road from Fayetteville, via the Cult
and Egypt on Deep River, the most
magnificent deposit of iron ore exists at
a place known as Ore Hill and within
Is miles of the coal deposits on Deel.
River. We have the anthracite coal at
Wilcox, and Tyson's. and many Other
places and the bituminous coal of the
very finest quality at Egypt and the
Gulf, at Murchison's and Brigham'-
and Foushee's and at Farmville and
Hickory, and all up and down Deep
River for miles and miles, and the
Yadkin Valley Railroad, now under
construction, passing directly through
these coal fields and almost cutting the
Ore Hill property in two. And besides.
all our hills in Chatham, between Ore
Hill and Deep River, TEEN with the
specular iron ore, the hematite and all
varieties of iron, and the whole lying
$50 or 200 miles nearer the sea at Will
mington than the Mitchell county iron
or the Bristol coal of Virginia. The
Yadkin Valley Railroad runs already
from Fayetteville to the Gulf and passes
within 100 yards Of one of the finest de
velopments of coal for making coke.
and runs within 400 yards of the great
Egypt Shaft, opened long ago, and
from which ons and tons of the finest
coal has been taken and the road is 60
ing on In its constructions towards
Greensboro and SO on to Ore Knob, in
Ashe county. If therefore these gen
tlemen can build a railroad from Bris-
tol, in Virginia, to Mitchell county, in
North Carolina, simply to transport coal
to the iron beds Of Mitchell county.
would 1t not seem to be reasonable that
coal from Deep River, only Is miles
from Ore Hill, in Chatham county.
could be transported upon the very road
to the iron beds along the route and
save the enormous outlay of money in
the construction of a road from Virginia
to North Carolina merely to get coal Ia
a point one hundred and fifty miles
west of the Chatham coal and iron.
All the coal and iron properties in Chat
ham and Moore counties have hen
worked so badly for the last 20 years
that no result of a satisfactory character
has grown out of it; but DR.. jackson.
of Philadelphia, an eminent geologist,
DIR. EmmersOn. State Geologist. and
several other distinguished men fiom
the north have pronounced the coal and
iron of our Deep River country equal to
/. any they have examined. | have been
IN most OF the shafts sunk for coal and
found from 5 to I feet thickness of coal
In almost every one and the fields of
coal, judging from its out crop and the
depth to the point where the basin dins
and rises in a southwestern direction
must extend some 35 miles.
In the Ore Hill property, containing
iron. there IS an area of several miles of
the most splendid IRON ore ever seen bv
man and at the foot of the mountains
runs the Yadkin Valley Railroad. and
only 10 miles to the coal beds of Deem
Biver. Now you may naturally, ask if