The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1890-10-30

THE VALLEY VIRGINIAN.
STAUNTON, VA.
THURSDAY October 60 1880
A LAND OF VAST RESOURCES.

A LAND OF VAST RESOURCES
The Steadily Growing Commerce and
Wealth Of the United States.
Gath, in Cincinnati Enquirer
The meeting of the Worlds Iron and
Steel Association has served to empha-
size the fact that the United States has
become the greatest producer of these
metals in the world, holding exactly
/ the place in manufacturing, therefore,
that it held in commerce thirty years
ago.
The world now sees that the ships will
be useless without manufacturers, and
that manufacturing supremacy is abso-
lutely necessary to the maint enance of
such commerce as that of England. The
development of the railway system of
the United States has been in the purest
respect an act of commerce. All those
ships are leaving England for nothing
else than to haul out the produce of the
interior of other lands. We have been
at work upon the interior, laying down
the element upon which our myriad
hulls can sail upon wheels. At the close
of the civil war there was not bridge
over the Mississippi south of the Falls of
st. Anthony nor any upon the Ohio be-
low Pittsburg and Wheeling. Even the
Hudson was unbridged as far up as
Albany.
The bridges of the United States alone,
which are essentially part Of commerce,
constitute the equivalent of one of the
greatest merchant marines of the world.
The Niagara Falls had but one bridge
over it before the civil war, and now it
has five. The Hudson river is bridged
two or three times at Albany, and above,
and again at Poughkeepsie, and bridge
schemes are afoot to cross at New York
city and at West Point. We bridged
the Thames river at It's mouth only last
year, a very important navigable stream.
Not even Brooklyn was connected with
| New York by any solid way until long
after the civil war, and that bridge cost
about one-fifth of the Queens navy of
ironclads it cost 100000 and the
navy of the Queen had cost, three or
four years ago, about $sO,OO0,OQ0, The
Susquehanna was unhridged during the
civil war between Washington and New
York, and it now has two bridges, and
two bridges have been constructed across
it at Harrisburg, where it is mile and
quarter wide.
The Ohio river is bridged from point
to point, and daring schemes are ON foot
to bridge the Mississippi at Memphis
and New Orleans. The very salaratus
of the plains is an article of commerce
hauled by trains across the continent.
The fruit of California, which is feeding
the country this year, since all our other
fruit persisted, is only brought to US
upon those flying wheels, whereas, if
we trusted to the formed sort of con-
veyance, which took it to Panama or
around Cape Horn, it would be dead
rotten before it got here.
Shall anybody inform us that the
great iron rocks of Lake Superior and
the nearly pure deposits of copper there
do not constitute commerce when we
bring them down in ships through the
Lakes, where we have improved the
navigable arteries, and with them built
up such splendid cities as Detroit, Cleve-
land and Buffalo? There is a God of
common sense which seems to take care
of the foolish Americans and instead of
throwing away our money on such ships
| ~ hr,ilf %n Uni or6o
and be substitute for the present base
ball games and horse tracks we have
made another Atlantic Ocean of our
huge interior until our trains of cars run
on the one side to Winnipeg and on the
other to the City of Mexico, and instead
of one railroad to the Pacific we have
half q dozen, and even now, when it
might be supposed that there was some
chance for us to go to sea and make more
than 2 per cent a year, projects are put
forth of building still other trunk lines
between the Mississippi Valley and New
York.
1t has occurred to somebody that the
New Jersey Central or the Lehigh Val
ley railroad can be extended from the
anthracite regions, through the near BIZ
luminous regions, thence through the
oil regions, and thence through the ma
tural gas regions, until Chicago and New
York shall be connected. not by the in
cidental towns and passenger traffic of
| former years, but by natures own indi-
cations of magnificent deposits. Indeed,
/ tc oil 70 II 1,n
rest Of the world as far as developments
have been shown in real wealth, and had
the British race, with it's experience,
this continent instead of Great Britain,
they would probably be doing precisely
what we are doing-finding out what we
have at home and making the mostQf it.
We have now TIC second merchant
marine in the WorldlIsand the largest rail
way marine. Our railroads more than
go around the world six times. In the
meantime our commerce has been an ex-
cellent nursery for sailors, and has been
constantly extending, SO that whereas
before the civil war we had few steam-
ships along the costs. and all Of them Of
wood, we new have iron steamers run
ping from the British Provinces under
the American flag, to Florida, to Ha-
wanna to Vera Cruz and Aspinwall, and
along the Pacific we do the whole bust
ness within American waters, and oui
commerce upon the great lakes is the
largest chapter of our entire maritime
story.
We have deepened the estuarles and
straits Of those lakes until there pass
srom 10000, 900 to 100, 100000 tons annu
ally through the Sault Ste, Marie. The
weakness of the purely commercial sys-
TEN, otherwise water system, Of traffic
has been shown by the sale, one after an
other, in all the SO called sovereign States
oftheir canals which had been laboriously
built by State action. Virginia, Marylan{
Pennsylvania, and Ohio have sold theil
canals, and though there ia q disposition
to build some new canals between cont
mental points, the idea is to put then
unGer national control and no longer
make them accessories of State interest
and State politicians.
Up 30 q very recent period we had NJ
considerable ports in America into which