The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1886-12-16
Vast Mineral Wealth.
Especial Cor. Manufacturers Record.
PIKEvILLE, PIKE Co., KY, !
November 90 1886. {

The prospecting party OF the
Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago
Railroad reached this town at noon to-
day after travelling nearly 1856 miles
from Johnson City, Tenn, and travers-
ing three counties in the southwest
ern corner OF Virginia and nearly 25
miles of Pike.
After leaving Estillville we journey
ed by easy stages through Wise and
Dickinson counties, stopping to exam
inc coal banks and to explore the val
leys of numerous creeks and branches
for the purpose of ascertaining their
relative value as routes for the great
railroad that will pass through that
region, and to see whether there
would be more freight furnished by
one route than another. The result
reached by the experts seems to be
that no one route has exceptional
means for supplying business, for the
knobs and spurs of Wise and Dickin-
son counties cover immense coal beds.
In every hill and mountain side are
great seams of workable thickness.
Most of what we have seen is a fine
coking coal, but there are also num-
erous banks OF splint and camel that
will pay to work, provided the railroad
runs near them. There are such inn
mense bodies of coal in those two
counties that only those. close to a
railroad will have transportation value
in this generation What course the
railroad will follow is therefore mat
ter OF supreme interest to the land
owners of those counties. tits a prob
lem that cannot be determined until
the engineers have solved another
which governs this. On the border
line between Kentucky and Virginia
is great gorge called 1.-THE breaks of
the Cumberland" Through this
george flows Russell fork, large trib-
utary of the Big Sandy river. This
break is one of the most remarkable
signs OF that tremendous upheaval
that lifted thesandstone and coal mass
es from far down in the bowels OF the
earth and projected them above its
level at an altitude and with an en-
vironment that reduce the cost OF
mining to minimum. No need
here to sink shafts hundreds OF feet
into the ground and to incur tremen-
dous expenses for engines, pumping
apparatus and hosting machinery
in most of these vast coal measures
gravity will do all the carrying from
the veins where the miners work to
the railroad cars. These are not small
. seams but foot or two thick on the
contrary, there are any number that
run from 4 to 10 feet in thickness that
can be opened up expeditiously and
cheaply. General Wilder summed uI
the situation tersely before we reached
here by saying "There is more
cheap coal in Wise and Dickinson
counties than the world can use fol
many centuries. | have never seer
or read of anything like it. God AL
mighty set His great forces to work
ages ago to create this tremendous up
heavel. Volcanoes and earthquake
were the mighty agencies employed
to lift these vast masses of carbon
from subterranean depths and faster
them in their places high above tht
valleys until they were needed. /
these deposits underlie the surface fo
20 miles down the Big Sandy, Gas the,
are said to do,) we have then the mos
accessible and most prolific coal for
2 nation of which the world has knowl
edge" The foregoing are not tn
careless words Of an enthusiast bu
: the matured opinions OF one Of tn
most practical men Of the age, who's
knowledge Of the business and who's
q good judgment in all that concerns
$ are unquestionable.
: The surface of the country between
. Estillville and Piketon is very lump
d indeed. Between the Appalachia
g and the Cumberland ranges are man
n lesser ones, with their foothills, spur
E and ridges. These are so many waite.
). sheds, from whose steep sides nun
b berless springs burst forth, that forl
e the branches and creeks which win
b their way among them in ever inerea
# ing volume, and, uniting as they aoy
l. become at last the forks of the OH
e and other great tributaries Of the Mi
It sissippi river. These swift waite
courses, large and small, have cat chal
e nels to the bedrock, and their banl
ie are open books on whose pages II
Ie plainly inscribed the geology Of the r
/ gion. Wherever a wagon road hi
e been made across these elevation
a because of the sballowness of the so
al the rock formation has been expose
"a and thus what the water reveals h
to been corroborated by mans work.
s. is fact that coking and steam coal