The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1891-10-29
NEW SERIES, VOL. / NO Ok
Industrial Notes.

Industrial Notes.
! In New South Wales a Government
commission, after spending a year on
how to settle or prevent strikes, comes
to the common sense conclusion that
they cannot be prevented.
There is a scarcity of cars on three
Iourths OF the railroads of the United
States. The managers of over 10000
miles of road are now prepar-
Ing to place orders for $4,000
cars, and about $50 locomotives. This
will help to boom business.
The coal product of the United States
is 100 million tons per year, or million
toms per week, or in round figures a
| half million tons yer day, which is ton
/ per day to every 1870 people in the Unit
ed States. The annual product of coal
is worth at the mines $160,oO0,00O
Every year thirty thousand acres of
coal, six feet thick, is mined in Great
britain. England has twenty thousand
million tons of commercial coal yet
available. The discovery of coal in so
so many new countries will gradually
decrease the demand for English coal
Seamless steel tubes are being largely
used on the clyde and elsewhere in
Great Britain, especially for marine and
hydraulic machinery. A three-fourths
inch tube with a core of / inch can be
drawn in steel to withstand a pressure
of 900 pounds to the square inch, 1t
costs less than other kinds
grand coal basin has just been dis
covered in Northern Mexico. including
e 100000 acres, in field 20 miles wide,
from 81 to 73 per cent in fixed carbon.
1t is 1875 miles from the Southern Pacific.
line is to be butt to it,, and 1900 miles
OF road will be supplied with coal.
A Buffalo inventor makes ice with gas,
and takes the gas back uninjured The
gas is reduced in temperature from 60
degrees above zero to so below, and
water contained in galvanized moulds is
frozen in ten hours, This discovery
means that power can be produced from
natural gas without steam, without a
boiler, without water power, and with>
out any assistance whatever.
In one of the Connelsville mines there
are II miles of railroad, and II big
pumps. Coal has advanced one third in
price in Germany in five years. A vast
bed of coal has been found in Austria
Is veins in ALL ranging from two feet to
35 yards in thickness. The basin is 25
miles wide. Several companies are be.
ing formed to operate it, and coal can
be mined for $1.40 per ton. This discoy-
cry will make coal cheap and plenty in
Europe, and drive out English supplies.
Natural gas is about going out as a
main reliance, and fuel gas of one sort or
another is coming in. Copper is being
found in wild lands in the Southern
States that can be bought at $1.25 an
acre. In Ohio, Sidney, Troy, Piqua,
Springfield, and Dayton are threatened
to be cut off from their supply of natur-
al gas. 1t sells at 10 cents per cubic foot,
but is running out. Wheeling is also
running out Gas is used at Youngs>
town for wells &c miles distant A new
gas well at Harrisville, West Virginia,
throws a jet $50 feet high from Il two
inch pipe. Pittsburgh manufacturers
are getting ready to make their own gas
The pressure of good many gas wells
in Western Pennsylvania has fallen
from $40 pounds to 1870 pounds.
Wrought iron tubes are being gener-
ally used in England for telegraph poles,
because of increasing cost of timber. A
Pittsburgh concern sent last weak sew
en- car loads of coke to Mexico. A forg-
ing 90 feet long, and IA feet in diameter
just made at Pittsburgh is the largest
ever made there. A New York builds
err has just ordered $50 tons of steel
girders for one office building in that
city. An Iron & Steel Works is to be
erected at San Diego, California. in the
farthest southwest corner of the United
States.
Electrical engineers are working on
the problem of electric roads for rapid
transit between cities. Each car is to
have four motors of 200 effective horse
power each. The engineers think they
can beat steam and locomotives.
In late experiment radishes inclined
45 degrees to electric light, and hemp
grew eighteen inches more in same time
under that light than other hemp. A
row of potatoes electrified produced 81
pecks, while another equal row without
electricity produced only 10 pecks. The
fertilizing element of manure. placed
near the positive pole, is distributed
throughout the circuit. The action of
the electric current is to dissolve the or
ganic principles existing in the soil
more rapidly than where electricity is
not used.
OF the II 1000 miles of street railway in
the United States and Canada nearly
one-half is operated by animal power.
5000 miles by electric power. and 600
miles by cable. There are 1000 compa-
MES of which 412 operate electric lines,
and "a cable lines. Lines covering 29,691
cables A Chicago Company with
81, ZOO, 600 capital, has been organized to
manufacture electrical machinery.
An Elgin, Illinois, concern has started
in to make machinery to use electricity
| to generate heat. Eastern capitalists
not loug ago bought the Detroit street
railways for $1,000, 900. Two street rail-
ways in Baltimore will use the Trolley
system, and an electric road is to be im>
mediately built Knoxville, Tenn, and
Leesburg, Va. are to have electric
roads. Augusta, Ga, will have brilliant
| exposition of electrical appliances. A
new store to be called the Fair building
is to be twelve stories high in Chicago.
A new cable between Canada and the
West Indies will be constructed. Liver
| pool, England, is to have heavy freight
elevated road 81 miles long, to cost
$2,O00,000, operated by electricity, and
to haul heavy trains.
The telephone between London and
Paris works so we'll that another is to
be built between London and Brus-
! sells. Russian troops are practiced on
forced marches by night under electric
light. Electric lights are being rapidly
| introduced into Connelsville coke mines
Staunton is improving very rapidly
| Main street is being laid with yltrOllZed
brick, which will make it one of the
prettiest as well as the best city
thoroughfares in the State. Building is
going on in every direction. There are
not less than one hundred dwelling
houses going up, or have recently been
completed. The progress of the town
has been retarded by reason of want of
houses to accommodate the population
coming in. Every house that is com
pleted has an immediate renter or pur-
chaser; and this would have been the
} case for the past two or three years, if
those who have the means had appro-
priated them to these purposes Staun-
! ton is going ahead, independent of the
land companies, and going ahead in the
, right way; building up substantially
and durably.
The price of silver tends downward
again. The price on the 18th of Octobe1