Arizona silver belt., 1888-01-07
THE INDUSTRIAL SOUTH.
EnexhAuStIble Mineral Resources Tributary
 to the City of Chattanooga.


 EnexhauStIble Mineral Resources Tributary
 to the City of Chattanooga.
 The soil of Chattanooga is fertile in Iron. It underlieS the very city, and everywhere ribs the vast mountains which surround it and stretch away OF every side as far as the eye can reach. But iron dug out of the ground is mixed with impurities that need to be purged away before it is fit for its multitudinous Nses. These auxiliary materials are generally found at such distances from the ore as to involve a heavy cost in transportation. But in this section they lie side by side and all together, the sron with the coal needed for coke, the Limestone for smelting the ore, and the fire-clay and sandstone for the construc- kion of furnaces. An idea of these n4in- eral resources thus tributary to Chatta= lhooga can not better be given than in the words of General John T. Wilder, the founder of the iron-works at Rock wood. He says:
 ''The coal-feld of Tennessee extends AA9irely across the State, from Kentucky to Georgia and Alabama, being an ex- tension of the Appalachian coal-ields whose northern extremity is in Northern Pennsylvania, and extends sohth-west- erly across Pennsylvania, West Vir- ginia, Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and ends in Central Alabama. The coal-feld of Tennessee covers 5,100 sstAre miles; there are about 1000 . square miles in Alabama, and 250 square miles in Georgia, all belonging to the lower coal measures. All these broad acres, excepting q small area in Alabama, form a covering for the Cum berland table-land, raised above the surrounding country, with an Outcrop above the drainage of the valleys on either side. easily opened, ventilated and drained"
 Throughout this extensive region are wonderful beds of fossilifcrous red hematite iron ore, none of it more than fifteen miles from the eastern outcrop of the coal measures, and all of it covered by the great limestone beds of the subcarboniferOus period. "All these formations lie like the leaves of book. fiat, bedded on each other, and general Ay tilted up and broken into high ridges, or folded into deep synclinal troughs' or valleys, in either case exposing the edges of the ore beds, making it easy to Sad, ready to mine, abundant in quan- HtS always accessible. These beds usually average four CT five feet in thickness, sometimes more" The General adds in regard to one species of the timber of this region: 1.-The largest forests of chestnut-oak in the United States, producing the best quality of tan-bark, cover the coal-felds of Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. supplying the largest oak-tannery on the continent, at Chattanooga, and furnishing tan-bark for the towns of St. Louis, Louisville and Gin cinnati. They are sufficient in area to supply 9O0,OO0 cords per year for an indefinite period without exhaus- ton, as the tree reaches maturity in our climate in forty years, and grows on an area of over 1000, O,OO0 acres; and if cut once in forty years, and producing only two cords per tree, it would produce perpetually 35O,OOO cords each year. One cord of chestnut-oak tan-bark grown in this latitude produces thirty three per cent more tannin than all the bark grown north of the Kanawha river"
 Other woods equally valuable sur round Chattanooga. The city is in the midst of vast forest, where not one- sixth of the land has yet been subjected to cultivation, Besides oak, there arc chestnut and black walnut standing there in almost inexhaustible supply and primeval grandeur. Here, too, is hickory enough to make the wagons of ;I continent, and sufficient supply of red cedar is growing on the Clinch river alone to furnish hollow-ware to every American housekeepcr for another cen tury.-HdrpeF's MagdziHe.
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