The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-26
ACTIVITY IN TIE SOUTH.
Farms, Forests and Mines Stralning Already
Contested Roads, xtsnslon of systems.
Especial to News and Observer

Especial to News and Observer.)
Baltimore, Md, Sept. 25.-Mr. George
j. Gould, who is now on tour over his
Record as follows:
III find the business outlook in territory
served by Missouri Pacific lines as excel
lent. Wheat made a good crop on those
lines and corn is out of danger of frost,
as far as I can see. Corn Will be some
what short of last years crop. Neverthe-
less it will be very close to fair average
crop in any event. Railroads in the ter
ritory will have more business than they
can handle. There is already a shortage
of cars, and l can see no let up in the COM
mercial prosperity of the country. The
large increase in the gross earnings of the
Missouri Pacific is the best index 1 can
give you as to what is going on out there.
To this the Manufacturers Record adds
that great crops will not be alone in max
ing strenuous demands upon railroads in
the South and Southwest The lumber in
dustry and the uncovering of mineral re-
sources are also to play an important part
in that particular. But Southern railroads
are straining every point, by improving
and by extensions to new fields to keep
pace with the calls upon them. An illus
tration of these activities is given in cor
respondence from Middlesborough, Ky,
describing the plans for the beginning of
actual construction work of a railroad to
extend from Middlesborough to Maryland,
the county seat of Harland county, KY,
which may possibly be extended across
the Virginia border. This road, which
will he fifty miles long and Of good
grade, permitting the passage of a train
of fifty cars, will penetrate the rich coal
fields along the head waters of the Ken
lucky River ON the border of the States
of Kentucky and West Virginia and will
open up an opulent region which has re
manned partially undeveloped for many
years, but which contains every grade of
coal, with the exception of anthracite.
Another railroad which has been survey
ed from Beattyville to Pineville, a dis
lance of ninety miles, extends across Ows-
ley, Clay, Leslie and part of Bell counties.
The correspondent says;
Leslie county is about the centre of
eastern Kentucky coal fields. There have
been found in this section eleven different
veins of coal, all but two or three OF
which are workable and eight above drain
age. In this section is found the same
grade that is now being marketed In the
older fields of Virginia and West Virginia.
The Pocahontas article lies about 800 feet
below drainage and what is known as
Sonega is situated 120 feet above the Po-
cahontas deposit. Not only is bituminous
coal found. but there also exist veins of
camel coal in some places of considerable
thickness. In one place a vein thirty-eight
inches in thickness has been found with
forty inches of splint coal below it and
separated by ten inches of shale. Camel
is also found in the older fields OF Knox
and Bell counties and is now being mar
keted to some extent.
among the counties where actual de-
yelopment is more active and where there
are more operators taking up lands are
Harlan, Letcher, Leslie, Clay, Knox Bell
and Whitley. Extensive mines have been
in operation in the counties of Knox, Bell
and Whitley for a number of years, but
numerous new mines are now being OPP
ened up. In Leslie county there are sixty
surveyors at work employed by some of
the most extensive operators of that sec
ton As has been announced, the Great
Northern Coal and Coke Company has Sc
cured vast tract amounting to nearly
100000 acres in the Big Sandy country
and will proceed in the near future to its
development, the construction of a railroad
to give a market for the coal output OF
that region being a probability of the near
future The Chesapeake and Ohio con-