REPORT ON THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY TRAVERSED BY THE Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio Rjiilroad, AND THE Paris, Georgetown and Frankfort Railroad, IN THE STATES OF VIRGINIA AND KENTUCIfit BY N. S. SHALE R, S. D. ^ > » ^ « < CAMBRIDGE, Mass. : W. H. Wheeler, Printer, 15 & 17 Brighton St. i88i. 4 '\ .F 451 .S53 Copy 1 REPORT ON THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY TU.WKKSEl) UV Till-: Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio Railroad, ANn Till-: Paris, Georoetown and Frankfort Railroad, In the States of Virginia and Kentucky. v*» Br X. S. SHALE R. S. D. CAMBRIDGE, Mass.: AV. H. Wheeler, Printer, 15 I's: 17 Brighton St. iSSr. REPORT. A map of the existing railways in the United States exhibits a singular want of these roads in the central portion of tlie Alleghany Mountain Chain. A section com- posed of parts of Virginia, Western ^^irginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, about as large as the state of Pennsylvania, is not traversed by a single railway. It might be supposed from this absence of modern ways that this region was either a desert or that its surface was so rugged that a road could not be made through it without Aery great expense. In fact this region is the most fertile and salubrious portion of the Appa- lachian Mountain system; it abounds in mineral resources and its surface offers less serious obstacles to the passage of rail- ways than any other part of that great mountain system. The fact that this great region, full of natural resources, has remained essentially undeveloped is due to the peculiar effects of slaverv. Althousfh of fertile soil and abounding in mineral wealth, it was not fitted for large plantations or tillage by slave labor; it therefore, as far as occupied at all, fell to the lot of the poorei and less enterprising small farmers of the South. In the old days of the south the onh' resources that could be made of use was those of the soil, and even those were limited to those soils that would produce the few plantation products. The great amounts of coal, iron, salt, timber, etc., that abound in this district were without interest in that stage of its history. After the war came a period of political uncertainty that de- terred capitalists from venturing into this field. Before the pro- cess of readjustment of relations was complete the country fell into the monetary crisis of 1873 which still further delayed tlie commercial re-absorption of the South into the Uninn. "Witliin 4 Liuid Rcsonrccs oj'f/ic Virginia, Kentucky & Ohio, a year or two this process has been lairl}- begun and the busi- ness men of the country are now beginning to discover the economic resources of a region much richer than any that has yet been fairly opened to the activities of our race. It is not too much to say that the development of this region is not only necessary to the industries of the South but equally essen- tial to those of the wliole countr\-. I shall now proceed to consider in some detail the economic res(jurces of the part of this district which it is proposed to render accessible. I shall t.ike lirst the climate, next the topography, the forests and soils, then the mineral resources in the order (jf their present commercial \'alue. The greater part of this continent is characterized by extreme climates, the variation in temperature between midwinter and midsummer are so excessive that the climate of one part of the \ear or the other puts a limit on all acti\"ities. In the extreme southern states the summers are so warm as to discourage work, and in the northern states the winter limits all but well housed labor. The only section of the country east of the Pacific coast that has a fairly equable climate, one that is to no extent a iiindrance to anv acti\ities, is found in the highlands of the Appalachian system between the Potomac and northern Geor- gia. All the parts of that region that lie more than one thousand feet above the sea have a remarkably wholesome and labor litting climate. In tlie heated season the nights are cool and in tlie winter the height of the sun, and generally clear sky that gives its rays access to the earth, mitigate the cold. The rainfall is large, it will average near fifty inches for this area, more than twice the average of the Mississippi val- ley, so that droughts are rare and never of destructive severity. This region is remarkable for the longevity of its people; good \ital statistics are wanting, but if we mav judge from the sur- prising number or very old people in this district the death rate is remarkably low. The most destructive disease of tlie north- ern states, consumption, is less common here than in any other part of the countrx- except the extreme southern states. There and Pan's, Georgetown & Frankfort Railroads. 5 is an entire absence of malarial fevers in all this section, despite its southern position; the height above the sea, and free drain- age prevents the development of such poisons. In all this area there is not a square mile of swamp land. These conditions exclude the most objectionable hygenic elements of our American climates. TOPOGRAPHY, SOIL, ETC. The general character of this surface is that of a table land on which stand numerous mountain ridges of no great eleva- tion. Only in the region of the black and smokN- mountains of North Carolina do these reliefs attain the height of over five thousand feet above the sea= These mountain reliefs are of two classes. In the Blue Ridge and its southern continuation in the Black and Smoky mountains we have massive sierra- like crusts of varied and picturesque forms. West of this belt of ancient mountains, in the Alleghanies, the ridges are of a simpler type of form and of smaller size. These lesser folds are not very continuous nor do they occup}' as large a part of the face of the country as the hills of Pennsylvania. The result is that this part of the Alleghanies is much more readily passable by railw^ay than the section to the northward. Of the section comprised within this elevated area not more than one-third is really mountainous, the remainder is a plateau in which the streams have cut deep valle^■s. Nearly the whole of the area approachable by this system of railwa3S is covered b}^ fertile soil, unlike the mountains of the northern Alleghanies or even those in Pennsl3'vania, and afford few rocky slopes and hardly any land that is not at least tit for pasturage. Many of the best farms in South-western Virginia lie upon the tops of these hills in places where, in more northern regions, the soil would be utterly sterile. The qualitv of the soils in this district is extremely ^■ariable, much more so than in northern regions, owing to the fact that thev here depend upon the constantly varying nature of the rocks be- G J^aiid Resources of Ihe Vii-ginia, Kentucky d- Ohio, neath tliem. When these soils rest upon a limestone forma- tion, as is the case in most of the mountain valleys, it is extremeh' fertile, unsurpassed in most respects by any known to me in this country. The Powell valley, for instance, is perhaps tlie most fertile mountain valley in the whole Appa- lachian mountain system. The same praise, in varying degree, may be given to the valleys of the Clinch, the Ilolston, the New River, and other streams; they seem to me, and I know the whole Appalachian district well, to be the most charming parts of its beautiful area. The soils formed upon the sand- stone which generally compose the ridges of this district are much more sandy than the limestone soils, yet they are gen- eral Iv verv good forests for tillage. These varieties in the nature of the soil bring about a wide ditference in the character of their timber, their natural and most valuable product. As a whole these forests are admirable in the size, variety, and quality of their trees. There is no doubt that the great eastern forest of North America, that vast wood which originally extended from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi was, and despite the great ravages that have been made upon it still is, the finest forest outside of tropical limits in the northern hemisphere. It is certain that this mountainous table land oi the southern Appalachians is the best part of this original forest; indeed it is the only part of it that remains in anything like its oriirinal inteirritv. The more southern woods still con- tain large ' areas of pines, but the last remaining hardwood construction timbers of the continent lie within this area. It is difficult to convey to the reader who has not personally examined tlie conditions of American timber supply, the real importance of the forest problem of this countrv. While the populous areas of the land were limited to the region of heavy forests the process of clearing awav the woods for tillage supplied the current demand for timber. At present the hard wood timber of the states north of the Potomac and tlie Ohio is essentially exhausted and is no longer capable of and Parts, Gcoi'gctozvn ct- Frankfort Railroads. 7 supporting the demand made upon it by the industries of this region. Meanwhile the population of this countr}- is accumu- lating in the northern region, where the original forests, in the scant form in which they existed, were almost destitute of construction timbers. It is not too much to say that the whole region from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean is without construction timber of any Aalue in the arts. These considerations make it clear that this country is certain in the future to be at greater disadvantage as regards timber supply than the states of Europe. In that continent almost every state has some part of its area that is preserved in forests and affords a supply of timber. Our western prairie and mountain districts will not reproduce its scant forests when they are cut away; we will soon have there a population to be numbered by tens of millions that must draw such supplies from the southern part of the Appalachian forest; I therefore look upon the railwa3-s that traverse these extensive woodlands as provided with a certain and very important basis for trade in the suppl}' of timber to which they give access. Each of the proposed branches of this railwav system will find its way into fine forest regions abounding in both hard and soft woods. The best of these forests will be found in two sections. In the region near the head waters of the New River there is a noble forest district containing several species of pines and the whole range of our ordinary hard wood trees. The best and most available supplies of timber will, however, be found in the counties in West Virginia and on the line be- tween Kentuck}^ and Virginia, where the woods abound in Black Walnut, Poplar (^Lii'iodendron tulipifera) , and the various species of oaks that have a high commercial value, especially the White Oak and the Chestnut Oak, the latter for the supply of tan bark that it affords. In the region between these two most important forest districts there is an abundance of all our common woods, but the most important of these is perhaps the yellow pine. I believe that the forest lands of this district may be roughlv but safely estimated to contain at least 2000 cubic feet of 8 Land Resources of I he ]'irg-nn(7. Kentucky d: Ohio, \alu;ibk' timber to the acre, making no account of the man}' sorts of too little value for any export use. This is equal to about 16,000 feet, board measure. Along two liundred miles of railwa}' there would be at least a million acres of forest within five miles of the track. If only a fraction of this supply should enter into the carriage account of the road it is evident that this resource would be of the utmost value to its trade. Within trading distance of this system of woods, readily accessible to it by small and temporary branches, there is an area of at least three million acres of land that is ad- mirably fitted for the purpose of forest culture and Avhich should always be maintained in this use. When the products of these forests are drawn on to supply the needs of the tree- less districts of the west they alone will furnish the basis of sufficient trade to support these railways. Unlike the more northern forests these woods of the southern Appalachians renew their trees with great rapidity and without change of species. This is well shown by the experience on the lands of the small charcoal furnaces in this district, which at some points have cut away tlie timber on the same ground several times within a half century. These woods always renew themselves wnth the same kinds after their successive removals. By giving these forests the care that is given to European timber lands I believe their timber crop will afford a greater annual net proht than can be obtained from any ordinary tillage of the sort of land they occupy. These lands can now be ob- tained for less prices than the government lands of the far west; a domain of a million acres can be had for about a million dollars; when properly put in communication with markets these lands should have a value of not less than thirty dollars per acre and will pay a good annual income on this sum. I should, therefore, recommend to you to purchase a large area of these lands, and am convinced that by obtaining an average of three thousand acres to the mile it will be possible to recoup the construction costs of the railway out of the rise in the value of the lands alone. and Pa?-/s, Georgctozvn & Frankfort Railroads. 9 AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS. I have already stated that the agrieultural produets of the soils in this' district are naturally very varied. As a whole this region is very well adapted to the nurture of all our stock animals. Its height above the sea, the abundant rainfall, the general nature of the soil, all fa\'or the growth of pasture and forage grasses. It is a well-known fact that the more southern and lower lying regions are generallv unfavorable for the growth of cattle, horses and sheep. This upland district is the natural region of supply of these animals for the gulf and Atlantic border states. Stock cattle and horses as well as sheep can be reared more cheaply here than in any other re- gion in this country. Winter feeding, which is the great ele- ment of cost in the northwest, is not necessary here; the ^vood ranges afford browsing all the winter, and the death of stock from cold is unknown. The absence of drought is also a great advantage to this industrv as to all the other work of the farmer. The greater part of the soils of this region are well suited to grain culture; the wheat soils are limited to the limestone districts, but Indian corn, rye, oats, etc., do well over its whole area. The natural staple of this district is tobacco, which is a \'erv favorable crop for railways inasmuch as it gives a larger weight and value for export to the area tilled than almost anv other crop. In this section the yield will average about half a ton to the acre, having an average \alue of about sixty dollars. This crop is delivered in the winter season when the other staples have been already moved to market. Its large value for its weight and bulk makes it possible to com- mand a higher carriage price than for any other crop. The area of land in the world that is suited to the production of smoking tobacco, of the type that has made the reputation of Virginia, is small ; it is practically limited to Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. The use of this product seems absolutely 10 Lund Resources of the Virginia, Kentucky <& Ohio, fixed in the habits of man so that it is only a matter of a short time when all these tobacco lands will necessarily be required. Good tobacco lands will pay a revenue on a price of liftv dollars per acre even with the shiftless culture *i^iven to them in the south. I estimate that there are at least eight hundred thousand acres of such land within the transportation limits of vour proposed system of railways, and look to this crop as the natural staple of the district }ou propose to develop. This district is also singularly well fitted for fruit culture; destructiNC spring frosts arc very rare, and all our ordinary fruits dourish with the least possible attention. Dried fruit is now the principal export for these remote mountain valle}s. I have seen cara\ans of bulls harnessed with pack saddles going over bridle paths across the hills with the annual shipment of dried fruits, gensang, feathers and beeswax, which supply in return the cotfee, needles, etc., which the mountaineers re- quire. The fact that these remote people need so little to maintain a very comfortable life is proof of the varied resources of the countr}'. I know no other cotter class in the world so well provided with all the necessaries and luxuries of life as these folk of the upland Alleghany valle3's, yet all they use except a few trifles comes from their own soil. MINERAL PRODUCTS. The mineral resources of this district are singularly varied; the\' include coal and iron in vast quantities and \ aried quality, salt, zinc, lead, manganese, a wide range of limestones, including large quantities of natural fertilizers in the shape of sulphate of lime or gypsum, fire clays, and cements, and a great range of building stones of w hich by far the most important are certain limestones, suited for ornamental purposes, known in commerce as limestone marble. This brief catalogue will inadequately serve to note the general nature of these valuable resources. We will now endeavor to give a somewhat moredetailedaccount of them : — and Paris, Georgetown Jc Frankfort Railroads. 11 Coal. The coal deposits of this district occupy all the region from a point near or a little north of the New River west to near the edge of the blue grass limestone of Central Kentucky; at this point the Appalachian coal field, including its principal outliers, is about one hundred miles wide, this being about the widest part of the basin. In this part of the basin the workable coals are between twenty and thirty in number. In variet}' they include all the various kinds of bituminous coal, from the dry coal, invaluable for smelting iron in the raw state as well as for use in steam furnaces, to the very bituminous cooking and gas coals. Both these varieties of coal are found widel\^ distributed through the basin. On the cen- tral part of the Kentucky coal field; in the counties of Breathitt and those that border upon it there are extensive areas of cannel coal which are more extensive than an}' others that have been discovered elsewhere. I believe that there is more of this quality of coal in the counties of eastern Kentucky than in all the rest of the country put together. This body of coal is the natural source of supply for the great extent of countrv to the eastward and southward, where there is no good coal to be found. There is, it is true, a considerable amount of coal in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, but it is on the w^hole much inferior to this of central Kentucky. This is in fict the southernmost state in which coals, fit to be com- pared with the standard Pittsburg coal, can be found. The future market for these coals w^ill be found both to the east and to the west. This Kentucky section of the Appalachian coal field is much nearer to the central parts of the Ohio valley than the Pennsylvania or the West Virginia sections. It has also an advantage inasmuch as it has no considerable competition to apprehend in the markets from the anthracite coal of the eastern Appalachian section, as is the case in Penn- sylvania for the reason that the anthracite fields of Virginia are 12 J^and Resources, of the I'irginia, Kenhicky c(r Ohio, small in ;ire:i and poor in quality. Although the coal beds of this Kentucky section, so far as known, never attain to the remarkable thickness of the great Pennsylvania seams, they are mostly of good workable thickness. There are pretty cer- tainly a dozen in the centre of the Kentucky section that have -1 depth of from thirtv inches to six feet. There is scarcely i\ hillside on this great area of twenty thousand square miles, Avhere from one to three coals cannot be found above the drainage level of the \alley. These coals are more cheaply mined than those of the anthracite district, and are equally well fitted for most of the arts. Their presence alone ensures to this rcirion a srreat manufacturinir and commercial future. If'OH Ores. The iron ores of this district are extremely abundant and of great varietv. In a ireneral wav thev arc divisible into four classes. In the tirst place we have the ancient deposits of the old Laurentian rocks, ores much altered by heat with the marks of their orijjin effaced. These ores belong to the same classes as those which are found in Eastern Pennsylvania, Putnam Co., New York, the Berkshire Hills and the Adiron- dac district. From the long continued decay of these ancient ores there arises a class of deposits commonly known as Bog Iron ores. These two classes especially abound in the upper part of the New River valley. The deposit known as the Cranberry ore in the upper part of this valley is asserted by iron experts to be •one of the most valuable sources of high grade ores in the United States. It is probably of this nature and owes its •singular freedom from phosphorus to the fact that it has been formed as a bog ore. These deposits of the upper New River district, and of Carter Co., Tennessee, which adjoins it, will have a value as a source of high grade iron ores hardly second to the iron mountain of Missouri or the ores of Lake Superior. The position of these Carolinian deposits is such and Paris ^ Georgetown & Fraiihfort Railroads. 13 that these ores can be carried to the iron manufacturing district of the Ohio valley at less cost than the ores produced from those remoter points. It seems to me that a railway up the New River valley, besides giving access to a vast area of excellent timber and a large surface of good lands, will find its warrant in the development of these ores. West of the New River district wc have two classes of ores which deserve careful attention on account of their ofreat extent and ease of access; of these the deposits known as the Clinton ore are the most important. This ore is found on the horizon Avhich has proved the most productive in iron ores within the United States. From northern New York to Ala- bama the upper surface of the Clinton limestone generally has some iron ore; at many points this ore is so thick as to supply large quantities of ore to existing furnaces. There are some furnaces in New York and Pennsylvania as well as in Tennessee that have had their principal supply of ore from the beds of this horizon. The most considerable exposure of this ore in this district is upon the flanks of PowelTs valley, es- pecially on its ^vestern side. All the way, from the very head of this vallev to the point known as Big Creek Gap, in Tennessee, along a line about one hundred miles in length, this ore is found in beds of from six inches to four feet in thickness. Thi-^ ore has long been used in one or two smill furnaces of this district, and the iron produced has been of an excellent qualit}-, sufficientlv proving the eminent fitness of this ore for smelting. For its best uses it demands a certain admixture of the ores found in the boundary district or from the ores of the coal field next to that described. This deposit of iron ores in the PowelFs valley is the most extensive and easily accessible of any known to me in this country. For sixty miles or more the deposit is perfectly continuous. In the valley of the upper Cumber- land, to which easy access is given by the several water gaps that cross the Cumberland mountains, there is an abundance of coal suited for smelting iron, and great fields of excellent charcoal timber, as well as an abundmce of fire clay; in the 14 Land Resources of the ]^lr:ion that we may name are the various building stones that can be produced there; one of these is the Tennessee marble, as it is termed in commerce. This important and beautiful building stone is fbund in the rocks known as the Trenton sandstone. It is extensively quarried near the Rogersville branch of the Virginia and Tennessee railway. Stone of the same general character is found at various points between the New River and the Cumberland Mountains, and I see no reason to doubt that good quarries of it may be developed at several points along the line of this road. In the region of the coal fields there are extensive deposits of fire clays which will have their values both from their use in the furnaces that are to be built in tliis region as well as in in the making of tiles for export. THE CENTRAL KENTUCKY SECTION. I have now considered in the brief wa\' which alone is possi- ble in a preliminary report the general physical conditions of this projected line in the region east of Central Kentucky. It remains to set forth the Aalue of this region to the project. 10 Land Resources of the Virginia^ Keutuckw ct- Ohio, The most important economic features of Central Kentucky is the exceeding richness of its soil. No other part of this country has won as great a name for its agricultural resources as tliis section, commonly known as the *' blue grass district." This fertile area lies in the central parts of the State, extending from the Ohio Riyer to a point a score or two miles south of the Kentucky Riyer, including about ten thousand square miles, or ab(nit onc-fourtli the surface of the state. Considering the uniform fertility of this region, the wide range ol its agricul- tural products, and the singular healthliilncss of its climate, I belie\e that it may fairly be called the best part of the United States. The principal soil products of this section are of a nature to giyc much business to railways. The principal exports are wheat, tobacco, hemp, and liye stock. The greater part of the hemp raised in the United States is produced in the counties which this road is to pass through. Experience seems to show that onl\- in this section, and in a small district in Missouri, can this staple be grown to a protit. On the borders of tiiis district, and within its area, about one-third of all the tobacco crop of the United States is grown. Very reccnth' it has been found that these blue grass lands are peculiarly well suited to the production of what are called cutting leaf, or those used for making the fine cut chewing tobaccos. The great rapidit>' with which this crop is increasing in the blue grass district, and the large protit it atfords, makes it seem certain that it will soon c(;me to be one of the principal products of this region. The space of this report does not permit me to discuss in detail the agricultural possibilities of this region; suffice it to sa\' that, including the li\e stock, its annual product is probably of greater yalue than that of any equal area in this country. Furthermore from the con- stant adyance in agricultural methods, the yery rapid in- crease of stock breeding and tobacco culture, this relati\e ^alue of the agricultural products of the district is certain and Paris, Gcorgctotvn c(r Frankfort Railroads. 17 rapidl}' to increase during the coming decades. It is certain that the products of this region will give a profitable busi- ness to well placed railways. It is not, however, on the agricultural resources of this dis- trict that this proposed railway will have principal!}' to depend for its business. This blue grass region has been deprived of its original forests and is quite destitute of coal, so that it mainl}' depends upon coal imported from Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia for its fuel supply, although coals equally or better suited for all the various uses of this kind of fuel are found in the region immediately east of this district. Within fifty miles of the heart of this "blue o-rass" reo-ion there are unlimited supplies of excellent and varied coals, including large fields of cannel and bituminous coal suited for smelting purposes. A road running from the center of Kentucky eastward to this coal field will have the advantage of this profitable element of traffic. The same highly developed agriculture that has deprived this central portion of Kentucky of firewood makes it impossible to furnish the demands for construction timber from its scanty woods. The people now rely on the importation of these tim- bers from other states. As this means a lengthened railway car- riage the price of such material is unreasonably high. Your pro- posed road will enter the admirable forests of eastern Kentucky as soon as they pass out of the blue grass district and from that point eastward for one hundred miles or more, will have the finest hard wood forests of this countrv adjacent to its line. It is not to Kentucky alone that we have to look for the consumption of the timbers furnished b\" these forests. The whole of the great southwestern countr}- is rapidl}' becoming cleared of its construction woods. The last census shows that it will be less than ten \ears before the forests of that region will be practically exhausted. Already the timber merchants of the Mississippi valley are looking to these great woods of eastern Kentucky and western Virginia for a good part of these supplies. This road will furnish a most advantageous "IS L'lnd Resources of the Mrglnia, Ketilueky ct- Ohio^ etc. line lor the export of all the forest products of this region. Crude and manufactured lumber and tan bark will doubtless be shipped over it in such quantities that I think they alone will go far towards giving it a profitable business. To sum up the conditions of this road, as far as they are determined by the physical structure and natural resources of the country it is to traverse, we may say that it proceeds through that part of the country between the Atlantic sea board and the Mississippi which is the richest in the economic resources tliat depend upon climate, soil, and mineral deposits. It makes its way through this region by ways that are less difficult than those necessarily followed by the other roads that pass through the mineral districts of the Appalachian mountains. I believe that for the mileage this road will command a wider ran<'-e of mineral and ao-ricultural products than am* other in this countrv. LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 014 611 454 4 ^ ¥ ik ^ \ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS