of its bed, can never be improved so as to render it navigable in low

water.

"On its banks, and adjacent thereto, immense deposits of coal exist. Can that coal reach the Gulf ports and compete with Alabama coal? In the present state of that river, competition need not be feared—its navigation is obstructed by ice at least three months of the year, and by low water three or four months more. It may therefore be safely asserted that the Alabama coal fields can supply the commerce of the Gulf with coal without any serious competition for all coming time, unless some mode is discovered, not now known to science or the mechanic arts, which shall surpass in speed and cheapness the present modes of transportation.

"Slack-water lines of transportation will undoubtedly be required at no distant day, on other rivers in the State, beside the Coosa. The Schuylkill slack-water line from Philadelphia to Pottsville, was alluded to simply to present a case in point, touching the contemplated improvement of the lower Coosa. The former relies on coal alone, while the latter has not only coal, but iron, timber, etc., in abundance, together with a most productive country in all the cereals, for a distance of two hundred and fifty miles through which it passes."

IMPORTANCE TO ALABAMA OF THE CAHABA RIVER.

Opening of the Cahaba-Views of W. C. Bibb—The tonnage of the Schuylkill-Bibb county-Extent of coal fields-Practicability of opening-Relation to Mobile-Cost of the work-Cost of making pig iron— Necessity for cheap transportation, etc.

DURING the session of the Alabama Legislature of 1868, a bill being before that body asking State aid toward the opening of the Cahaba River to navigation, the following interesting facts, in support of the proposition, were published in the Mobile journals, in a series of letters from W. C. Bibb, Esq., of Montgomery, an old citizen, who is thoroughly acquainted with the resources of Alabama:

"The quantity of coal mined in Alabama is supposed to be 25,000or 30,000 tons per annum and increasing. The quantity, though small, should not discourage us.

"The Pottsville, Shamokin, Leheigh and Wyoming coal regions of Pennsylvania, sent to market as follows:

"The report of the Engineer of the Schuylkill Navigation Company for 1844, says, 'that the tonnage of the Schuylkill valley is a million of tons annually,' and adds: This is a tonnage so immense that it is difficult for the mind to form an adequate idea of it.' And yet in 1867 it amounted to eleven millions of tons. Again: For several years after the navigation was brought into use, each boat carried about 25 tons,' but now (44) 'they carry sixty tons, and the boats are drawn by horses.' With a boat carrying 60 tons, conveyed by horse power, seventy-five cents per ton is found to be a fair price for freight from Pottsville to Philadelphia, and it included the cost of unloading.

"In 1844 there were one hundred locks and dams to impede the passage of boats and add to the cost, in 108 miles. The number has since been reduced to 71, by raising their hight. By looking at Professor Tuomey's Geological Map of this State, you will see that the Cahaba River enters the coal measures about six miles by land, above Centreville, in Bibb county. This county, I am assured by Mr. Graham, who was the assistant of Mr. Tuomey, is the richest in mineral wealth in this State, and our recent surveys fully confirm this opinion. The surveys have been made at our individual expense, running through the past two years, and have been confined mostly to a geological examination, and I have no doubt is the most accurate ever made of any portion of the State, showing the seams of coal exactly through the various sections of land, and the deposits of iron, marble, etc., all of which are found to exist in beds or seams of unusual thickness. There are 14 seams throughout the field of 300 square miles, underlying each other, and by deeper penetration many other seams may be found.

"With regard to the river, we have only satisfied ourselves that it can be opened at a small comparative cost. The measurements have been confined to about thirty miles of the stream, commencing at Centreville and going up. Below that point, the fall we suppose to be the same with the Alabama from Wetumpka, and the Warrior, from Tuscaloosa. Each of those towns are situated at the first shoals, and the two latter are at the same elevation with them. The fall is about five inches to the mile. Above Centreville the fall is about nineteen inches

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for the first ten miles (per mile). This region is capable of supplying any demand that may be made upon it for coal, iron and marble; and I would here remark that the handsomest marble I ever saw came from this section, and seemed to be composed originally of small shells chrystalized, giving it, when polished, the appearance of a beautiful painting. Cheap coal and cheap iron will build up any city situated as Mobile is, with the facilities for shipment to any part of the world. There are also incidental advantages far beyond the market value of these articles in their crude state, which accrue from their affording the means of manufacturing. Pittsburg, with a population of 150,000 inhabitants, is situated two thousand miles, by way of the Mississippi River, from the Gulf, and with only seven months within which to ship her products, has been built up and sustained by coal and iron. Perhaps you may be surprised to learn that much of the iron she manufactures and sends to Mobile and other Southern markets is made from ore transported from Lake Superior and from Pilot Knob, in Missouri. The ore from Missouri is brought from one hundred miles inland to the Mississippi River, then down that river and up the Ohio River twelve hundred miles to her wharves, where it is manufactured into bar, pig and castings, and is then sent forth to market. Coal is delivered at Louisville, a distance of 466 23-100 miles, at $1.12 per ton, and this includes the return of barges to Pittsburg. The Pennsylvanians have opened the Schuylkill River to navigation at a cost of $12,000,000, by means of seventy-one locks and dams and forty miles of canal, on which horse power is used; and such is the scarcity of water that large reservoirs have been built to save it for use at many of the locks on the upper portion of the stream. They have thus overcome a fall of 618 feet in 108 13-100 miles; yet, notwithstanding all these difficulties and delays, coal is brought the entire length of the navigation at $1.08 per ton. Now, compare these rates of freight by water with the cost by railroad. The Reading Railroad, which had a double track and all the appliances for a first-class coal road, carries coal 93 miles for $2.18 per ton. The stock in the Schuylkill Company is worth $240 per share of $100, while that of the Reading Railroad is scarcely at par. The Cahaba River can be opened for about $1,000,000 to perpetual navigation. The Schuylkill cost $12,000,000, and is frozen up four months in the year. There is but little doubt that coal and iron might be delivered in Mobile at $1 per ton freight. It would cost $1.25 per ton to mine the coal, aggregating $2.50 on the wharves of your city. The consumption of coal in and around the Gulf of Mexico is about 2,000,000 ton per annum, and rapidly increasing as steamers increase. The number of screw propellers built last year, as.

compared with sail vessels, was in proportion of 180 per cent. of the former to 30 per cent. of the latter. At this rate of increase, there would be in a few years a demand for 10,000,000 tons of coal in the Gulf. With a constant supply of cheap coal, Mobile would monopolize the entire coal, trade of that Gulf, and build herself up into an immense manufacturing city, supplying South America, the islands of the Gulf, and if a ship canal were built across the Isthmus, there would be no limit to her markets. "Mr. Noble, of Rome, told me a few days since that it cost him $13 per ton to make pig iron. Mr. Thomas, of Pennsylvania, told me that it cost him $22 per ton in Leheigh county, Pennsylvania, and $5 freight to New York. On the Cahaba River, coal, iron and lime may be found in juxtaposition,, while in Pennsylvania they are brought from remote and opposite directions to a common center and manufactured. Hence the difference in the cost of manufacturing. You can not suppose that Pittsburg can bring her ore from Missouri, up stream 1,200 miles, and compete with Cahaba in its manufacture into pig iron. Suppose it cost $13 to make pig iron on Cahaba; if that river were opened it could be freighted to Mobile for $1 and to New York for $4. This would be $18 per ton versus Pennsylvania iron at same place at $27 per ton. The capacity of the Cahaba for transportation would be equal to 10,000,000 tons per annum.

"But suppose the 2,000,000 tons of coal and 1,000,000 of iron were sent to the Mobile market, this would be more by 50 per cent. than the value of the whole cotton crop of Alabama. If this was accomplished, your meetings of citizens would be, not to inquire into the causes of her financial prostration, but to form stock companies to manufacture iron in its various shapes, cotton, wool, etc., such would be the extent of the accumulations of her citizens. Now a very liberal charter has been obtained for the opening of the Cahaba River, and if Mobile will raise $400,000 cash it will insure the accomplishment of the enterprise. This river penetrates the Cahaba coal field one hundred miles, for which distance the coal may be seen at every bend jutting from its banks. A survey of the adjacent country develops the fact that seams of coal 12 feet thick and beds of iron, both of superior quality, from 50 to 100 feet thick may be found. Marble and other stone exist in great abundance. A railroad can not accomplish the development of the mineral region, for the reason that these heavy, cheap materials can not be transported at a rate so low as will compete with foreign coal in the Gulf, and there is the only market worthy of notice, the interior demand being too small to pay for working a mine.

IMPORTANCE TO ALABAMA OF THE TENNESSEE RIVER. Muscle Shoals-Report of U. S. Engineer—Navigation of the Upper Tennessee—Its tributaries—Advantages of this section—Mineral wealth -Emery coal-A Coosa canal-Early and cheap wheat-Opinion of General Weitzel-Chattanooga Convention of 1869— Views of General Wilder-Harmony, etc.

By a glance at the map it will be seen that the Tennessee River passes from east to west through the entire breadth of North Alabama. The valley through which it passes is one of the most fertile and healthy in America. Unfortunately the navigation of this stream is interrupted by Muscle Shoals. Should those Shoals be surmounted, and we believe that the prospect is promising for speedy action in the matter by Congress and by the States interested, the valley of the Upper Tennessee, throughout the entire breadth of the cotton fields of Alabama, which lie upon its banks, and up into the valleys and hills of East Tennessee, would be thrown open to the commerce of the West.

The attention of the Government has been directed to the improvement of this river, from time to time during the last 40 years. In 1832, Congress voted the State of Alabama 400,000 acres of public lands to improve the navigation of the Tennessee with a canal round the Muscle Shoals. These lands proved insufficient, and we learn through the official reports of surveyors to the Engineer Bureau in Washington that these Shoals remain now as they were then-passable by steamers for only "three or four weeks in the year," and then exceedingly dangerous, and this, notwithstanding that for 300 miles thence up to Knoxville there is water enough during nine months annually, for steamers drawing three feet.

"From Brown's ferry," say these Reports, "a majestic river, broad, deep, and with gentle current at all times, is seen stretching for 100 miles above, through a valley abounding in the latent elements of prosperity; a river which, in this distance, is seldom seen to bear on its bosom a pellicle of ice, and a country whose climate is so genial that wheat is ripe for harvest by the time the green blades in the Northwestern States emerge from the snow.

"Yet, with this favorable combination of natural resources, the valley languishes for want of a cheap transportation to market; and this por