At No. 5 the Greenbrier River joins the New River; and here the projected and partially finished Covington & Ohio Railroad enters the valley of the Great Kanawha. This line connects at Covington with the Virginia Central Railroad, which centres at Richmond. By this line the distance from tide to the navigable waters of the West is less than by any other route, and the grades are more favorable. But farther up the New River, at No. 6, is the mouth of Sinking Creek ; and at this point a means of communication exists from the waters of the West to those of the East, which has been long and singularly overlooked. The moun tain-ranges here run parallel from the New River to the James, and their valleys afford the lowest point of elevation from the Eastern to the Western waters. The Great Alleghany ranges are cut down to their base by the waters of the New River, while the waters of the James drain its eastern escarpment. The deep valleys of the east cross the courses of these rivers : consequently, a line from river to river along the valleys must have less elevation to overcome than a line across the summit of the Alleghanies. The writer examined this line in 1858-59, and, by barometrical observation, found that the elevation to be overcome was nearly 1100 feet less than the most favorable present route from east to west ; or the greatest elevation is less than 1400 feet where the denuding ridge or water-shed may be pierced by tunnel.
This route offers to Eastern and Western Virginia natural advantages which no other route from east to west can possess. It presents a line whose maximum grades shall not exceed 20 feet per mile, and whose dis tance from Richmond or City Point to navigable water on the Kanawha is only about 320 miles.
These natural advantages are so important and desirable not only for the development of the region in question, but all the great West, that they must and will force themselves on the attention of the enter prising and far-seeing. The consummation of such a desirable object would lift Virginia from her present ruin and desolation and place her fairly and advantageously in emulation with the progressive Northern and Western States. It would be more effective in eradicating sectional pre judices and strife than provost-marshals or bayonets, lecture or sermon ; it would teach our "erring sisters" the way to wealth, power, and pros perity, and show them that all they sought by war and separation exists in peace and union.
Under such circumstances, the Great Kanawha Valley assumes an im portance not hitherto noticed or discussed since the days of Washington, who first called attention to this subject and projected and predicted what the present writer now only reiterates.
In order to obtain approximately the coal production of the Western bituminous coal-fields, we shall be forced to estimate roughly the amount of coal mined in each State. It will be impossible to obtain at this writing the correct figures ; but we shall not be far wrong if we place the amount of coal produced at a half-million tons annually in West Virginia, on the line of the Ohio, and in the Kanawha Valley. By far the greatest quantity of the coal used by the Western steamers, and in the cities on the Ohio, is mined in Pennsylvania, though the coals of West Virginia are more accessible and may be supplied with more economy.