Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1882-01-18
KING GOALS HIGHWAY.
From Harper's Magazine for Jan. 1882. }

of umber-hued fresh-water into the
azure saltness of the Cult. two objects
boldly claim attention. One of these,
the Port Eads Lighthouse, towers
above the surrounding buildings, a
Cyclopean giant whose single eye
glares about the four points of the
compass, and winks once every thirty
seconds. The other is a sloping soli-
tary hillock of coal, immobile, dusky,
sullen; its base set about with great
block Jumps, its apex irregular in form,
crumbling, unslightly. A contrast,
truly, to its brilliant uis-a-uis, yet
holding within itself all the elements
of light as brilliant as that which
pours through the Fresnel lenses op-
poslte, and representing. however, in
each homely lump storehouse of heat.
and a magazine of power to be evolved
through glowing furnace and throb-
ing engine.
And as the voyage proceeds up the
great river he will find no more light
houses, bnt At every plantation, at
every city, and every town along the
mighty stream he will End compan-
| ion to the coal pile at South Pass.
He will see coal ashore and afoat, in
transit bv water or on land.
Whence comes it? How comes it?
These are the questions it is the prov
ince of this paper to answer through
pen, pencil aud graYer.
Twenty-one hundred miles distant
from the carbon heap at Port Eads its
bulk is represented by void as black
as is the coal itself, deep beneath the
goodly hills of Western Pennsylvania
that are within sight of Pittsburgh's
perpetual cloud OF smoke. Under
these hills a grimy army of men la
Dor to dislodge what nature stored
there countless ages ago: solid carbon
for the warming Of million fresides
along the banks Of the Father of Wa
ters, for the driving of wheels in
thousands of workshops in the valleys
| Of the Ohio and Mississippi, for the
lighting of busy streets in cities two
thousand miles away, and for the I'M
pelling power Of river and ocean
steamers.
Between the subterranean pit of the
producer and the furnace of the con-
sumer there stretches, not the parallel
metals Of the railway. nor the terraced
levels Of a canal but the devious chm
nels of two great rivers, the Ohio and
Mississippi. Thousands of miles of
tortuous water-course, varied gaunt-
let that must be run by the coal-trans-
porting fleets that issue from the por.
tails Of Pittsburgh, aptly termed the
"Gate City of the West"
A gauntlet of shifting "bars," Of
treacherous shoals, and whirling and
vexing cross currents, where mean
deriDgs and reversions of course so
rapidly follow one another that the
greater river seems to write it's super
abundant SIS up and down the land,
and the lesser Ohio seeks to describe
its U's in water loops throughout the
thousand miles of Its length from
Pittsburgh to Cairo. These are but
the spring and summer difficulties to
be surmounted by the inland naviga-
tor. Winter multiplies them to q
forrfold degree. Out of the Allegheny,
whose sources lie within sight of Lake
Erie, there pour at intervals during
the winter months swift-moving gla-
ciers of ponderous ice-cakes, drifting
southwark to their dissolution at the
rate of six miles an hour. Or it may
be that this stream and the Monon-
gahela-as well as the Upper Ohio
are silent under solid fields of ice
Then let sudden thaw or genial rain
release the imprisoned streams, and
acres of ice break up and carry des-
truction to coal fleets at or near Pitts
burgh awaiting favorable stage of
water Then hundred beats of
healthy pulse would mete out sufficient
time for the destruction of enough
coal to light and heat a city for
month.
So much for the danger surround.
ing the river coal trade of Pittsburgh
| now as to the nature and extent of the
trade itself 1t IS, in the fret place,
trade which the most ambitious rail-
way can not absorb. Natures high
way is here supreme, and time loses
its monetary value as compared with
the cheapness of transportation by wa
ter. To send ton Of coal from Pitts
burgh along those two thousand miles
OF waterway and deliver it at New
Orleans cost $l.30, or about FIVE cents
per bushel of seventy-six pounds.
The freight hungriest railway could
not afford to carry coal more than one
tenth that distance for the same price.
This extreme cheapness il is that has
called into being this trade, that has
caused its growth, and that will per-
petuate it's existence though the con-
tInent be cobwebbed with railways
| The river transportation of coal has
| developed to such an extent that
whereas in 1874 the coal from seven
acres of Pittsburgh coal seam was
ioated from that city, there was left,
year before last, dark echoing void of
720 acres under the smiling farms of
the Keystone State.
The intrinsic excellence of Pitts
burgh coal as heat, steam, and light
producer must not be lost sight of as
an element in the building up of the
trade. 1t Is fuel as yet without q
successful rival in the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi valleys, shut out, however,
from all but river points, only by rea-
son of the prohibitory bar of transpor-
tation charges. These rivers render
it possible for the sugar planter Of
Louisiana to evaporate his syrup over
| Pittsburgh coal, the ocean steamer to
| fll her bunkers at New Orleans, and
for that city, Baton Rouge, Natchez,
yicksburg, Memphis and st. Louis to
light their streets with gas. To these
benefits must be added the enormous
supply of coal for domestic purposes.
Many of the consumers are as remote
from the narent heda of the fnel thew