Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1884-01-31
COLD CASH NEEDED
To Make Things Boom In the
Kanawha Country
WITH A THREE-coRNsRED BOOM
How Washington Newspaper Men Regard
the BOyntOn-Keifer Fight-Work on
the Ohio and GuyandOtte Being
Pushed With Yigof.
Speei1l 20 The Regis.er.

WASHINGTON, January 30.-I met Captain
Blake, OF the Davis Greek Black Band Ore
Company, here yesterday. Blake is an
Erglishman, who commenced to investi-
gate the mineral resources of the Kanawha
Valley about ten years ago. He was
civil engineer, something of a chemist and
q man who had travelled considerably, and
he pursued his investigations intelligently.
Soon after he began he became associated
with Captain Jim Huling and A. T.
Hoyey, and the three commenced to work
together good deal like prospectors in
the early period. of the gold mining excite
ment on the Pacific coast. They used to
start out aud travel over the kanawha
hills" said q Charleston gentleman who
introduced me to Blake, when they were
so blame poor they could hardly pay for
their horse hire, and travel round in the
mud and rain like ducks hunting for
worms. Finally they struck what they
wanted, and then the troubles OF enlisting
capital 10 develop it began. Finally they
enlisted the interest of a Boston company,
and now they have about
All the Money They Need.
asked Capt. Blake what the company
was doing and he said they had q small
test furnace about fifteen miles from the
mouth of Davis Creek, which furnace was
connected with the Kanawhs river and the
Chesapeake & Ohio railroad at Davis Greek
station by a we'll built railroad of standard
gauge. The black band ore which crops
out near :hs furnace runs about thirty.s:x
per cent of metallic iron, and the furnace
which has ten foot .bosh turns out about
tHenty-four tons of iirsT-class foundry iron
daily, which sells readily at about 81. 80
per ton. The company have good vein
of cOkirg coal on their property as well as
plenty OF limestone. but prefer to haul
limestone of better quality from point
about eighty miles distance from the fur
mace. They have made about three dollars
and half per ton on their product ever
since they began and the quality OF their
iron has constantly improved.
Your folks up in the Panhandle have
had the lead in iron making long enough"
said Captain Blake. 1--WE are goiss TO take
precedence Of you eventually in the Kama
wba Valley. We have recently found
vein of red hematite ore within four miles
of Charleston, running as high as sixty-siI
per cent. metallic iron in the assay. /
friend who has made ores a study, aud
when | told him where ii came from he
said was liar and no such ore ever was
or could be found in the coal measures. /
told him knew of no better way of estab
fishing my veracity than by showing him
the deposit, and he
Came Out TO hook ss It.
He was so sure that the place had been
'salted' that he would not be satisfied until
he had taken the mattock and gotten out
a specimen tor himself, when he admitted
that the books might sometimes be mis-
taken"
The only trouble about developing that
whole section with outside capital consists
in the questionable titles held by some al
legged owners. / was recently asked By an
eastern gentleman 10 help him dispose OF
some Of his land i'm that neighborhood and
when the abstract of title was submitted
10 me for inspection | saw at once that II
was not worth the paper it was written on"
That and the unwillingness OF eastern
people 10 believe the statements as 70 the
mineral richness OF that territory delays
investment. An attorney who recently
visited Philadelphia TO represent the valne
of a particular tract was told that he spoil
ed his chances with business men by using
such terms as "inexhaustible" in speaking
of mineral deposits. There is no such
thing as inexhaustibility as applied for in.
stance to coal deposits, We'll, 4" said the
barrister, may be / am little extrava-
CANT in using that word. IL you can bring
the aid of some other planet to bear upon
fhe earth perhaps you can burn 1t up to-
gether with
The Balance Of Mundane Things.
but if you propose to rely on ordinary sup
nly and demand for consuming IL l will
stick 10 nv word and what is more 1 will
prove that it is practically ine1haustible
by the figures"