The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-30

powder. which was seized by the British
on Sept. !. IVA The act set the coun-
try ahame, and stirred the indignation or
Burke, Pitt and Fox. After the news from
Lexington and Concord, in 1715, the col
onies were secured for powder, and less
than sixty-eight barrels were found. New
York had &@t 100 pounds Lord Dun
more had seized the entire supply in Nlr-
ginia, and when Patrick Henry demanded
sits restoration at the head of troops, he
only got its money value and not the pow
der. When Washington took command
of the troops raised by the colonies ne
made the alarming discovery that there
was not more powder than suthcient 10
furnish each man with nine cartridges. BY
great address this dangerous deficiency
was concealed from the enemy (dolme
Annals, volume II, page 240)
1t is remarkable that no American his
tory so far as l know, tells US whence
the robbed and impoverished colonies got
their powder wherewith TO wage the war
of the revolution. A similar gap exists
concerning the war of ISL when an EN-
barge cut US off from foreign supplies.
We are told about almost everything else
but not where we found our saltpeter'
! That question is not answered.
Among those who resisted the tyranny
of Lord Dunmore in stealing the ammuhl-
ton of Virginia were two young men nam
ed Thomas jefferson and James Madison.
They were not only patriots and states
men, but were also cave hunters. Among
the caves found by jefferson was one
that he named for his friend, Madison
cave" located in the Grottoes ridge, IN
which also occur Weyers cave and the
Cave of Fountains. Mai. Jed Hotchkiss,
| the veteran map-maker and geologist. is
| my authority for saying that Madison
cave was mined for saltpeter during the
| three great wars of the revolution, of 1872,
and of the rebellion-probably the only
cave on the continent of which that can
| be said. But jefferson found many other
richer saltpeter caves, which he describes
| in his Notes on Virginia" page Al. lie
SAYS that one of the largest was on Rlcn
creek branch OF the KanaWha, from
which more than 1000 pounds of inter
were obtained. Others were on the Cum
| berland river, and at least fifty were in
| the Greenbrier valley, in one of which
! jefferson found the typical megalonyX
made famous by Cuvier. His account is
| all the more valuable because written
| while the war of the revolution was going
on, and thus showing us whence the pa
| triots obtained their means to carry it for
| ward. To limited extent gunpowder was
| seized from the enemy, and a few pounds
| of saltpeter were made from excavations
| under old stables and by artificial pro-
| cesses, but the bulk of it undoubtedly
| came from the caves of Virginia.
| Kentucky was originally set off from
! y
| county, and was made a state in Il92.
| Among its early settlers were strolling
! chemists, who knew of the caves in the
| Greenbrier valley and elsewhere, and hunt
! ed for similar ones I'm the newly organized
/ state. They were richly rewarded. On
| der lodges, in rock houses" and rock
| castles" they found solid masses OF nj
| ter weighing from 100 TO 1900 pounds. Pre-
! vious 10 1900 there had been found twen-
| ty-eight saltpeter caves in Kentucky, from
! which more than 100000 pounds of salt
| peter had been obtained. These facts led
| DR.. Samuel Brown of Lexington, KY, to
| make a journey of 1000 miles on horse
| back in 1906, in order to lay them before
! Philadelphia. He closed his able paper,
| probably the first of its kind, with these
| words: "a concern for the glory and de-
| Tense of our country should prompt such
| of our chemists as have talents and lei
! sure to investigate this interesting sub
! ject. / suspect that we have much to
| learn with regard to this salt so valuable
in time of peace, so Indispensable in time
| of war" The time of war was nearer at
| hand than he may have thought, for it
| burst upon us in 1912, and we were cut
| off from foreign supplies. DR.. Brown mad
| estimated that which he termed the Great
cave contained 1,03Q00O pounds of saltpe-
| ter; SCOTS cave, 10000; Davis cave, So
| 000; three others not named, 10000. Since
! then the Mammoth cave has been discov-
! cred. and the WyandOt cave and others
in Indiana, and the inter fever almost RI
vailed the subsequent gold fever of 1919.
! We have the authority of Flints eeogra-
/ ply for the statement that. during the war
| of 1S12-15, the annual yield of manufac-
] tured saltpeter from Kentucky alone was
! AGO. 900 pounds, beside what was made in
/ Indiana, Tennessee and elsewhere. Part
| of this was used at home; but most of it
| was carried by OK carts, or on pack mules,
across the Alleghanies to the seaboard to
| be used in making gunpowder.
| The term "saltpeter caves" is a misnO-
mer only justified by the general usage.
! That which is found in these caves, and
! which is colloquially called peter dirt
! is soil impregnated with the nitrate of
lime whereas true saltpeter Is the nitrate
| of potash.
| Prof. w. B. Rogers hold that the peter
! dirt Is derived directly from the over
| hanging rocks, which agrees with DR..
| Samuel Browns observation that the wa
| ter tricklng from rocky crevices has the
| same properties as the liquor got by lixi-
| waiting the cave clay. DR.. Brown says:
| 1.-THE nitric acid is formed within the caves
and is condensed upon the rocks, the lime
Of which it dissolves."
The fact seems to have been generally
overlooked that the strata of sandstone
! everything the cavernous limestone is rich
/ in inter- 1t was from this source that the
}
| The process was to blast the sandrOck
and break It into small fragments for the
! boilers, thus getting inter directly with
out the aid OF I've. The reason it was
OWEN up was that the best sandrock was
extremely hard, because Of the presence
of iron, and IL was practically easier and
cheaper TO treat the nitrous earth found
in the caverns.
In order to give some idea Of what was
once a vital industry Of our country,
though now wholly abandoned, ] shall
briefly describe the work done at the
Mammoth cave, which may be taken as
typical Of the rest This includes what
was done at the Salts cave and Dixon's
cave, belonging to the same estate. Dix
on's cave was. at some prehistoric time
a part Of the Mammoth cave AS meas
ured by me 81 IS 1900 feet long. from sixty
TO eighty feet wide, and about 100 feet
| high. The floor of this enormous hall Is
rdged by eighteen transverse rocky piles
some forty feet high and as many thick
cut by passage-Ways for convenience.
And every block and fragment Of those
] FIrnorfvp RIDGES was laid fhtFa Inv tho ola