The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1889-08-08
WHAT A COUN TRYl
It's Marvellous Mineral Wealth.

it is known that last year $500, 1000, 900 in
value was taken out of the earth alone,
in minerals, an imperfect conception
NAV be formed of what the created val
ues of a year amount to. 1t is no
wonder that there is surplus in the
treasury and that the problem that is
testing the ingenuity of statesmen is to
know what to do with the annual reve
nues derived from the least burdensome
and least expensive system OF taxation
of which the world knows. AS we
showed few weeks ago, the cotton crop |
alone of the South, in its various forms |
of.use, amounted to $400 900, 000annually; |
then the minerals worked into the fin
ished fabrics in this country and the |
cotton and wool and flax and hemp, |
utilized in the various manufactures to
which they are adapted, and this coun-
try become its own.producer of the raw
material as well as its own manufactu-
rer-the owner of its workshops and fac
tories and furnaces, to consume the raw
material, it would stagger the magma
ton and challenge arithmetic, to esti-
mate the aggregate of values that would
be thus created.
The New York Press referring to the
mineral resources of the Nation, has the
following instructive and suggestive ar
ticle:
A few days ago the newspapers of the country
announced in f1ve-line item the appointment
by the Census Bureau of expert to superin-
tend the collection of the statistics of the min
eraI resources of the United States Few people
who read that item with the other more impor-
tant dispatches from Washington, realize the
Importance of the position, or the enormous task
which the expert i'll question has to perform.
Under the general term Of mineral products of
the United States come metals, fuels, struc-
tural materials, abrasive materials, and miscel-
laneous products of the earth. The lnyestiga-
ton covers the entire country; it goes into every
State and Territory, and extends even into
Alaska.
Think for moment Of the value of these pro
ducts as they are dug up, or poured forth, as in
the case of petroleum, natural gas and mineral
waters, from the bowels of the earth. The latest
statistics we have in relation to the mineral
sources of the United States those of 1885, but
the methods adopted for gathering them pre-
clude the possibility of their being so far reach
ing and SO complete as the census reports will
be- And yet the total value of these products
was nearly six hundred millions of dollars for
1885, This vast sum taken from the earth in one
year! 1t seems incredible, and yet it is true
For example, there iron and steel, the
value of which in the first stage OF manufacture,
excluding all Implications, is not less than S145,-
100000. Then we have gold and silver amount
ing to $93,OO0000, copper aggregating $34,0O0O0O,
lead worth $11,0O0.000, zinc reaching S6,0O0,OO0
and quicksilver yielding ST. 100000, to say nothing
of nickel cobalt, oxide, chromium, manganese,
aluminium and platinum.
Turning to fuels, we find that the total pro
duction of all kinds of commercial coal in 1888
over IA, 600 600 tons, representing value at
the mines of $2O4 100000. This product extends
away into the great prairie States, which have
only begun to be coal producing sections. A
few years ago Illinois, Iowa and Indiana pro-
duced but little coal. Now Illinois is the second
coal producing State in the Union, and even
the product in Iowa aggregates 100000 tons
In the estimate of the value of fuels we
must include coke, valued at S14,0OO,00O, and
petroleum at about SIS 100000 and since the last
census natural gas must be estimated, and the
only way to gauge the value of this mysterious
product is to estimate the amount of coal which
it has displaced On this basis we find that the
value of natural gas in 1880 was nearly 1923 000-
600.
The demands for magnificent public buildings,
for handsome stores, for superb mansions are
all the time increasing the product of struc-
tural materials. The value OF the building stones
produced in this country is $25,5O0,O00 annually,
that of the brick and tile industries S4S,00000O,
the production of lime $25 900 $780, while cement,
comparatively small industry, will reach in
value $5.05O,OOO year. And then we have salt,
showing product valued at over $4,0O0,0O0 an
nually.
We now come to the abrasive materials. such
as buhrstones, grindstones, corundum oilstones
and whetstones, all important industries, and
added to these are the innumerable other pro-
duct of the earth, such the precious stones,
phosphate rock, marls, bromne, borax, sulphur,
pyrites, barytes, gypsum ozocerite, soapstone,
asphatum, feldspar, flint, potters' clay, mica,
mineral paints, graphite, fiuorspar, infusorial
earth and Zircon. 1t is only fair to include in
this line the mineral waters, which are rapidly
increasing in value, and will soon represent a
product of 100000 annually.
In this way we have a total annual product of
$500 100000. Hundreds of thousands of people are
kept busy in the various mining regions of the
country These feople paid higher rate of
wages than those who toll in the same manner
in European countries. They part and par
eel Of that great protective system which has
made the United States what it is-a system
which has added impulse to American enter
prise, and resulted in a thorough search for this
great variety of products which nature has sup
= piled so abundantly for the use of the inhabit-
ants of this continent.
Had it not been for protection these valuable
mineral products, which add annually
x6O0,0O,0O0 to our increasing wealth, would
many of them be still buried in the EARTH They
would, in short, be undeveloped. The miners
would have no employment, the railroads which
now reach forth into these regions would never
have been built, and the factories which are
kept busy by this enormous supply of raw mater
ial from the earth would never have existed. On
the contrary, i'll place of all this the finished
product would be coming in at our ports, and
the wealth which the farmers produce from Gull
tivating the soil would be going forth into for
eign lands to pay for the labor which is now
performed at home, and the performance
of which has built up right along the line of
agriculture thousands of small industrial cen
tiers, the Inhabitants of which pay the farmer a
better price for his product without taxing him
to pay the freight into distant lands.
Upon the whole then, the expert, Dr. David
L. Day. who has charge of the statistics in rela-
ton to the mineral products of the United States
has an important task-a task which if well done
can be made as interesting as romance, and
which will form small part in the general in
dustrial progress and development of the re-
public.