Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-12-28
FIRST YEAR OF CENTURY
PROMISES TO BE N OF GREAT
DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRY
IN WEST VIRGINIA.
FOR COAL INCREASING.
MORE NOW SHIPPED, IN PROPOR-
TION TO AMOUNT DUG,
Than Any other State in the Union.
Great Enquiry From Foreign Con.
sunaers-A New Method of Ship
ment by Ocean Likely To Be
Brought About-The Output the
Present Year.

Special to The Register.
CHARLESTON, ". Va, December 81.
The first year of the new century
promises to be of great industrial
activity and unprecedented develop
ment in West Virginia. The demand
for West Virginia coal is increasing
every day, the great forests are being
hewn down and hauled to market, and
the oil development reaching over so
large a portion OF the State is bring
ing many thousands of dollars to the
Golfers OF her citizens. To care for
this ever increasing traffic railroad
building and extensions are necessary,
and the consequence is that West Vir-,
ginia now leads all the States of the
Union in the matter of railroad &C
tiyity.
Or course the most certain and at
the same time permanent source CT
wealth to the State lies in it's immense
coal fields. The timber will in a few
years be gone; oil values are largely
speculative; but the coal is b re- as cor
tainly as the trees, and in quantity
that insures its lasting long after
every stick of m~erchanIable wood has
been used and forgotten.
West Virginia now ships more coal
in proportion to the amount dug than
any other State in the Union, and ire
amount is being continually increased.
So popular has this coal become thai
operators who have been carrying on
iorOn nno~ofionc oiccuy1ou1 500 aoo,;~.r
into this State now and buying up the
coal lands, and many large additional
developments are promised for the i'm
mediate future. Even the deep lying
coal has come into the market, and in
the counties of Marion, Marshall, Non
ongalia and Preston many thousands
of acres of land have been bought with
a view to shafting for the underlying
veins. Hitherto the mines in this
State lave been almost exclusively
drift mines and little heed has been
paid to the coal that lies so low as to
render shafting necessary. But now
those seams are being sought for, and
the lands that bear them have been
bringing what would a few years ago
have seemed fabulous prices for even
the best drift Goals. In marion, Mar.
shall and Monongalia these deep Goals
are the famous Pittsburg seam, and
their development will put West Vir-
ginia u~ndisputably in the front rank of
coal producing States. There are
many people in the southern and west
ern markets who are prejudiced in fla
yor of the Pittsburg coal and will have
no other. Hereafter the West Virginia
dealer can go after him, as he has long
been able to go. after the man who has
no prejudice and wants the best.
The foreign demand for West Vir-
ginia coal is increasing rapidly, the
product having been found to bear
transportation and frequent handling
particularly we'll. Two things have
stood in the way of supplying the for
eign trade with American coal; first
the lack of bottoms in which to carry
them; second, the lack of railway ter
minal facilities at the ports.
s 1t is reported that the first of these
is likely to be obviated by the adop-
ton for use on the Atlantic ocean of
the whaleback boats found so valuable
in the carrying trade of the great
lakes. With a number of these fleets
afioat the foreign coal trade of the
United States would be rapidly stimu-
lated, and West Virginia would come
in for her full share of the net in
crease.
The second trouble will be cured as
rapidly as money and enterprise a
work a cure. All the coal carrying
lines of railway are looking to their
ocean terminals, and soon there will be
ample facilities to care for every ton
of coal for which the domestic producer
can find foreign market, and West Vir-
ginia will be found at the head of the
push.
The beauty of this whole coal affair
is-speaking from a horribly selfish
standpoint-that the demand for coal
is every year growing greater and the
supply in Europe every day growing
less, having been in some parts utter
ly exhausted, while we have but begun
to trim around the outer edges of u
immense deposits.
The reports for the year 1900 will
show that West Virginia has mined
about 1000. 600 tons, an increase of
$500, 900 tons over 1899, and the end is
nowhere near in sight.
The approaching century is roseate