Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1911-03-23
NEW ERA FOR THE SOUTH.


on the meeting Of the Southern Com
mercial Congress at Atlanta that ap-
peared in our last issue and was crowd
ed out on account of lack of space. The
address of DR.. T. C. White, State Geol-
ogist of West Virginia, was of SO much
interest to this section, however, that
part of his address is given this week.
ITO the great State of Virginia be-
longs the honor of having initiated the
use and mining of coal in America. 1t
was on the James River in the Rich
mond basin of Triassic coal that the
first commercial coal mine of the CONT
nent was opened in 1850, and from
which fuel which was shipped to Rich
mond, Philadelphia and New York sew
eral years before the first coal mine
was operated in the anthracite fields of
Pennsylvania.
ITO the richest coal field in the world
biologists have given the name Appa-
lachian. This great field, which already
produces one-third of the worlds coal.
takes its origin in Central Alabama and
trending in a canoe shaped trough
northeastward across Tennessee, Ken
lucky, Southwest Virginia and West
Virginia, over 900 miles distant from
its Alabama terminus. Of the 551 bill
hon tons of biiuminous coal originally
present in this Appalachian field, &C
cording to the latest figures of the
United States survey, 3S9 billions or
considerably more than two thirds of
the entire amount of fuel in this great
basin belong within the boundaries of
the States represented by this congress,
while IN the entire South total of SIG
billion tons of bituminous coal is pres
ent, as estimate by the same author
ity- The quantity of lignites and peat
IN these Southern States would add
many billions to this total, while their
liquid and gaseous fuels, the petroleum
and natural gas supplies, are so enor-
nous that no estimate even approx
mately accurate can yet be made of
these available fuels.
These figures give some general idea
of the wealth of fuel energy locked up
in the stratified rocks of the South. but
they take no account of the immense
resources for light, heat and power to
be derived from Harvesting her great
rivers on their rapid descent from the
high Appalachian plateau to tide level.
in the regions where rainfall is ALWAYS
abundant, and the sources of electric
energy therefore perpetually renewed.
These details and summaries from
official sources reveal the amazing fuel
resources of the South. Will the peo-
pie of these great States measure up to
their opportunities in conserving and
utilizing these enormous treasures of
fuel and power without such frightful
waste as has characterized the past in
dustrial history of the nation? The
great State of Pennsylvania in which
the northern prov of the South's cele-
brated Appalachian coal basin ends, and
which contains in the Pittsburg district
the manufacturing center of the world,
owes its prosperity mainly to those in
dustries dependent upon cheap and
bountiful supplies of fuel, coal and coke.
The empire of industry founded in that
great State. is a prophecy of what the
future has in store for the favored re-
gions of the South. True it is, that I'M
bridled waste, and careless mining
methods have already dissipated such a
large portion of Pennsylvania fuel re-
sources in coal and natural gas, that
with her enormous and ever-growing
production of coal, the present century
will see practical exhaustion of fuel
from the Pennsylvania and Ohio end of
the Appalachian coal field. Hence, if
the South will only awake to her own
interests and properly conserve from
wanton waste her as yet almost I'M
touched fuel treasures, she may event
ually inherit the scepter of industrial
supremacy which the waning supply of
cheap fuel must eventually cause to
pass from Pennsylvania to regions more
fortunately situated with reference to
fuel resources. The Investigations by
the fuel experts of the government
have demonstrated that the usual mine
rubbish wastes, or even a fuel so poor
in carbon as peat, will when converted
into produce gas and utilized through
the agency of the gas engine, generate
more power than the best West Vir-
GINA coal (Which is the best in the
world) when converted into power
through the agency of the steam en-
CINE. At least one-third of the tonnage
in nearly every coal field of the country
as well as of the South consists of slaty,
bony or inferior fuel which must be re-
jected and utterly lost in the COMPETE
tive production of steam coal for COM
mercial use under present conditions.
Its value for power when properly util-
lied is even greater than that of the
purest coal as now burned. This awful
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