THE PRACTICAL AMERICAN MINER.
, in his wonderful providence, has blessed our country, above all others, with the most magnificent profusion of mineral wealth. When compared with the most favored lands, where coal and iron are essential elements of national wealth and greatness, our country far surpasses them all in her exhaustless resources, not only of those great and controlling elements, but all the essentials to national strength and power which make an industrious people wealthy, prosperous, and respected.
In every aspect in which we view the wonderful resources of our country, we find cause for gratulation and admiration, whether we con template the productions of the soil, or the vast extent and richness of the mineral kingdom; the and varied scenes of its distribution, or the topographical features and facilities for its development. These resources, however, are rivalled by the physical proportions of the land which we cannot cease to laud and admire,—whose limits extend from ocean to ocean, and occupy one-eighth (I) of the habitable world, within the temperate zones.
We may be allowed to speculate a moment on the providence which preserved, throughout the darker ages, a land so evidently favored with all the natural blessings and provisions for the good and welfare of man.
We cannot fail to recognize that universal Wisdom which orders events from the beginning and provides for the destinies of nations before the era of their existence. With this faith as a foundation, we may justly hope to come out of our present day of trial and pain like gold tried in the fire ; with the country we love united in one common destiny,—purer, richer, dearer for the incalculable price of precious blood and the immense amount of treasure it has cost us.
But our task is eminently a practical one, and we neither expect nor wish to indulge in speculative digressions. The work before us is one of fact and figure,—usually " dry" work ; but we hope to make it in teresting to the general reader, as well as useful to the professional and practical.
The distribution of coal and iron—and at the present day we must not omit oil—throughout North America, but more particularly the United States, is wonderfully general and impartial. On consulting the maps, it will be noticed that our coal deposits dot the features of this country from ocean to ocean, and in some cases their immense extent almost obscures the surface of entire States. Of our three million square miles of superficial area, the known deposits of coal occupy 200,000, or one-fifteenth (A) of the entire area; while the existence of other immense fields not yet explored is unmistakable.
In comparison with other coal-producing countries, this ranks not only first, but far superior in that respect to all others.
The United States has one square mile of coal to every 15 square miles of territory.
Great Britain has one for every 20 square miles of superficial area. Belgium has one to every 222 square miles of surface.
And France has one square mile of coal to every 200 square miles of territory.
The value of coal to those possessing and utilizing it is made manifest by their prosperity and the wealth and power of communities and nations whose economy is largely influenced by its trade or dynamic value.
England furnishes the most prominent instance; and English cities located on or near coal, or within its direct influence, flourish, while older and formerly more prominent places decline. We may mention Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and last, but not least, New castle-on-Tyne. To what can we attribute the astonishing growth of those cities, or the declining condition of Canterbury, Winchester, Salis bury, and other towns in the south of England, but to the presence or absence of coal? But we need not look abroad for instances of its influence on cities and communities, when so many of our own cities and towns owe their growth and prosperity to the proximity or availability of coal. It is true that other causes have, in many instances, given a wonderful impetus to the birth and growth of towns and cities in the New World. But as the true promoter of progressive and permanent development, coal is pre-eminently the first in value or dynamic effect of all our minerals, or the means of converting them to our use and comfort.
"If you would see what coal can do for a people who turn it to full account, look at Pittsburg, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, built up by its mines of coal. There are no drones in its hive; heads and hands are busy. It lost $30,000,000 by the Rebellion, without shaking its credit. No city on this continent contains more solid wealth in proportion to its population. Its prosperity is permanent, for it is based upon the creation of new values. Possessing in its coal the creative power, it stretches out its mighty arms and gathers the wealth of half a continent into its lap. It brings to its furnaces and forges the iron and copper of Lake Superior; glass-sand from New England, Missouri, and Illinois; lead from Wisconsin and Missouri; zinc, brass, and tin from beyond the seas. You pass through its gigantic establishments, and are amazed at the variety and extent of their perfected productions. Yet all these, from the most delicate fabric of glass to the ponderous cannon and steam-engine, are in the coal which underlies the smoky hills of Pittsburg."*