Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-11
The Opening Of Vast Coal Fields in
West Virginia Means Much
TO NORTHERN MANUFACTURERS.
Competition for COnnellsvilles Output That
Must Of Itself
REDUCE PRICES ALSO IN THE NORTH

Few recent enterprises arc oH lafsS-
scale than the great coking works whiel
are soon to light these charming river val
Ieys with ftful glare at night and wral
them in clouds of sulphurous smudge mos
of the day. The great extent Of these Goa
deposits has been talked of in a general
way for some time, and the assertion ha,
been made that they rivaled in many re-
spects those of Western Pennsylvania
but it has only been within the
past year that they have attracted
the serious attention of heavy
capitalists who have become convinced OF
their value for coking and are now building
works which in time, they anticipate, will
equal in output the famous Connellsville
region.
Experts have pronounced the coal Of
these mountains equal for coking purposes
to that of Connellsville, and the narrow and
| beautiful valleys of these winding noun
| tain streams will be lined with hundreds of
| ovens before another twelvemonth is over.
| Frick and the other great coke operators of
| Pennsylyania will have to meet new and
! vigorous competition, the central force of
| which are the millions of the Vanderbilts
and the financial shrewdness aud sagacity
of Drexel, Morgan Co.
Cheaper Fuel for the South.
The effect of this development upon the
iron and steel industry of the nation is too
complex a theme for such an article as this.
In all likelihood it means cheaper fuel for
the Southern furnaces and mills, and con-
sequently greater lease of power for them
and more force to their competition. The
single item of lower freight rates on fuel
because of the shorter haul will be very
10 al he ind ofria IF ruid do
section.
The force of this new competition in coke,
| however, is likely to also compel lower
prices for that fuel to the furnaces of Ohio
and Pennsylvania as we'll as to those in the
South, so that the iron and steel industries
of the whole country will probably derive
some benefit. Thus is the interest of one
section the concern of all, for the opening
up of this new eoking region will quite pos
sibly be notable factor in the further
cheapening of iron and steel products for the
millions The Chesapeake and Ohio Rail-
road has built branches up the Ganley
river and Loup creek to accommodate
this new traffic and in anticipation of its
volume has also double-tracked its road,
the work being almost completed at this
time. Since the steep walls of the New
river rise so closely to the water as in many
places not to allow of two main tracks side
by side, the second one is on the opposite
bank of the stream, and 1t is expected coke
ovens will be built near both wherever the
steep walls recede enough to permit oft.
A Picturesquely Beautiful Region.
The 1S miles Of the New river which are
soon to thus become the center of q great
-coking enterprise are widely famous as part
of one of the most picturesque and beapti-
full OF the mountain rivers of Eastern Amer
lea When one eontemplates it now and
thinks of what it will be year
hence, the old aesthetic structures
of RuskIn against modern industrial
and despite American zeal for the develop
ment of great resources and pleasure in in
dustrial advancement, we cannot but con-
fess q sympathy for Ruskin's pleas and feel
the sting of regret that the wild beauty
which has given thousands of travellers de-
light must be blasted by the touch of mod
ern materialism.
Those who know its charms will mourn
for the old along the New next year and
forever after. The quiet of wooded glen
will be broken by the shrlll whistle of the
engine on the coal-breaker. High up the
steep slopes, marking entrances to mines,
will stand Hnsightly buildings like plague
spots in what are even yet tree-elad soli-
tudes Below them to the railroad tracks
will be the dirty and unpoetic tramways,
and into the clear waters of rushing rivers
Will fall the communicating refuse
of the mine. The smoke and
dusky CRIME of coke ovens will
mingle in choking clouds with the blue
haze of autumn that bands the mountain
sides and the soft mists that crown majestic
SUBMITS. The sweet doors of the deciduous
forest and the balm of pines will
alike be lost in the sulphurous exhalations
from myriad of smudgy pits. The negro
miners, huddled in coarse new cabins in
little recesses of the mountains and their
brother toilers over the stone ovens alike
begrimed and prosy, have lost the charm,
if not the lighthearted cheerfulness of the
old plantatian life, and stalk like veritable
imps of Vulcan in landscapes where only
man and mans works are vile.
Great Changes in Few Years.
A few years since the rush and shrek of
the locomotive awoke strange echoes
among mountains that rarely knew a
sound less tender or profound than the roar
of the tempest through gorge aud de6le,
the alternate moaning of the trees
in winter and their whispering
choruses in summer and the muir
mur of the mountain torrent in spring
time rushing with foam and fury
upon its apparently endless task of cutting
even deeper its rocky channel, and wrest-
ing some atom as guerdon from every stub
born boulder that disputed its way even
while, by its fall from its strata above, it
mutely testified to the proves of the
stream. In autumn, the same stream ed
died and rippled softly over the
rocks, with little crests of white where the
rapids are, or glided into CLASSY FOOLS in
the shade of immense granite boulders,
Then, too, the magician of the season
waved the wand of color over tree-clad
mountain sides, and glories of the rainbow
shone forth, while here and there gray
ledges and dark green of pines, unmoYed
by Rutumn's witcheries stood out in con-
trast with the Kaleidoscope in which maple
and chestnut, hickory and second-growth
oak, beech and sumac blushed and glowed
and burned and shone in exquisite, ever
varying combinations of color harmony.
Much Sacrificed to Commerce.
Who that has looked upon these scenes of
rare beauty, some few glImpses of which.
as caught imperfectly with the camera, are
reproduced herewith, can think with other
thansregret of the loss that must come when
on either side the polluted stream lines of
coke ovens beich flame and smoke and the
railroad creaks with grinding wheels bear
ing fuel for distant home and factory! No
more will midsummer twilight with the
same flmy curtains of gray and drab wrap
fold on fold In deepening gloom the short
steep ravines, the abrupt mountain Sides
and even the shining river while soft
breezes come down the gorge breathing the
GOODNESS of lofty SUBMITS. In winter the
glory Of the snow on bare trees and dark