Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1889-08-08
New Series, Vol. 20, No 80.
OUR MINERAL RESOURCES.

OUR MINERAL RESOU RCES.
New York Press
A few days ago the newspapers of tn
country announced in five-line iten
the appointment by the Census Bureau
of an expert to superintend the collee
tion of the statistics of the mineral re
sources of the United States. Few peo
pie who read that item, with the othe
more important dispatches from Wash
ington, realize the Importance of thi,
position, or the enormous task which
the expert in question has to perform
Under the general term of ''minera
products of the United States" come
metals, fuels, structural materials, abra
sive materials, and miscellaneous prod
ucts of the earth. The investigation
covers the entire country; it goes into
every State and Territory, and extends
even into Alaska.
Think for moment of the value OF
these products as they are dug up, OF
poured forth, as in the case of petrole-
um, natural gas and mineral waters,
from the bowels of the earth. The latest
statistics we have in relation to the min
eral resources of the United States are
those of 1888, but the methods adopted
for gathering them preclude the posi-
bility of their being so far-reaching and
so complete as the census report will be.
And yet the total value of these products
was nearly six hundred millions of dol
lars for 1888. This vast sum taken
from the earth in one year! 1t seems
incredible, and yet it is true.
For example, there are iron and steel,
the value of which in the first stage of
manufacture, excluding all Implications,
is not less than $145, 100000 Then we
have gold and silver amounting to $685.
100000, copper aggregating $34,000,000,
lead worth $11,000,000, zinc reaching
$6,000,000 and quicksilver yielding ST.
100000, to say nothing of nickel, cobalt,
oxide, chromium, manganese, alumni
ium and platinum.
Turning to fuels, we find that the to-
tai production of all kinds of CONNER
cial coal in 1888 was over 142,000,000
tons, representing value at the mines
of $204,0 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 produced but little coal.
Now Illinois is the second eOal-produc-
ing State in the Union, and even the
product in Iowa aggregates 100000
tons. In the estimate of the value of
our fuels we must include coke, valued
at 100000, and petroleum at about
$25, 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 $23,000,-
600.
The demands for magnificent public
buildings, for handsome stores, for su-
perb mansions are all the time increas-
ing the product of our structural mate
rials The value of the building stones
produced in this country is $25,500,000
annually, that of the brick and tile in
dustries $49,000,000, the production of
lime S25,000,000, while cement, compar-
atively small industry, will reach in
value $5,000,O00a a year. And then we
have salt, showing product valued at
100000 annually.
We now come to the abrasive materi-
ais, such as buhrstOnes, grindstones, cor
undum, oilstones and whetstones, all
important industries, and added to these
fhn inv Afh nf
the earth, such as the precious stones,
phosphate rock, marls, bromine, borax,
sulphur, pyrites, barytes, gypsum, ozo-
cerite, soapstone, asphaltum, feldspar,
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 rap
idly increasing in value, and will soon
represent product of 100000 an
nually.
In this way we have total annual
product of $600,000,000. Hundreds of
thousands of people are kept busy in the
various mining regions of the country.
These people are paid a higher rate of
wages than those who toll in the same
manner in European countries. They
are part and parcel of that great pro-
tectiYe system which has made the Uni
ted States what it is-a system which
has added impulse to American enter
prise, and resulted in thorough search
for this great variety of products which |
nature has supplied so abundantly for
the use of the inhabitants of this conti-
nent.
Had it not been for protection these
valuable mineral products, which now
add annually $600,000,000 to our in
creasing wealth, would many of them
be still buried in the earth. They would, |
in short, be undeveloped. The miners
would have no employment, the rail
roads 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 materi-
al from the earth would never have ex
listed. On the contrary, in place of all |
this the finished product would be COM
ing in at our ports, and the wealth
which the farmers produce from culti-
waiting the soil would be going forth in
to foreign 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 thous-
ands of small industrial centers, the in
habitants of which pay the farmer bet
ter price for his product without taxing
him to pay the freight into distant lands.
HALVES AND QUARTERS.