Miscellaneous [pp. 530-537]

534 ADVANTAGES OF THE LOWER OHIO FOR MANUFACTURING.
200 gallons of water, and consuming 1 chaldrons (45 bushels,) of bituminous
coal per day-pressure of steam sixty-eight pounds to the square inch. To do
double the work does not, as I am told, require double the power and nothing like
double the fuel. This estimate was made eight or nine years since; within that
time very important improvements have been made in the application of steam
power and the use of fuel; and probably I may safelv say that an engine of 90
horse power, requiring 80 bushels of coal, a day, is sufflicienit for the mill of 10,000
spindles.
Then 80 bushels coal for 300 days at 23 cents per
bushel $5,520 00
Add salary of engineer - 500 00
6,020 00.
Showing an advantage in favor of steam,from coal at twenty-three cents a bushel,
of $112 per annum. The cost of an engine of 90 horse power, boilers, belting
pipes, &c., not required for the purposes specified in the other, would be probably
not over $9,000, while the cost of communicating the water power to the machi nery would be at least 17,000. Montgomery, in the work already quoted from,
states the cost of two water wheels, equal to eighty horse power, including gear ing, gates, shafting, belting, &c., at $17,000. The Tremont and Suffolk mills at
Lowell, contain 12,000 spindles, make coarse goods, and have six water wheels,
the cost of each wheel between $3,000 and $3,500, entirely exclusive of the cost
of excavating and walling up the branch canals to ansd from the mills.
It is a mooted ques ion, which will last the longer, the wheels or the engine; but
give $3,000 to equal the difference, and there is the interest of $5,000 to add to the
advantage before stated. i
After refering to the cost of working cotton mills in Great Britan, and the
New England States, and pointing out the reduced scale of expenses in the coal
region, the author of the pamphlet presents the following
SUMMARY
Of the advantages of manufacturing cotton where the seams of the Illinois coalfield
are cut by the lower Ohio
We have the following data as elements of the calculation.
A mill of 10,0;)0 spindles will consume 666 tons of cotton, make 600 tons of
cloth, and use 24.000 bushels of coal, 2,53) gallons of oil and 46,000 lbs. starch
per annum; it will require of operatives 25 men and boys and 200 females, whose
wages will average the Lowell prices-say males 80 cents per diem and females $2
per week besides board, or males $6,000, females $20,800 per annum. The
average prices of board at Lowell are per week for males $1 75 and for females $1
25-or total per annumn $17,375.
It is safe to assume that the prices of board on the lower Ohio would be onethird less than at Lowell where a sirloin of beef costs from 15 to 16 cents the
pound, potatoes from 60 cents to $1 per bushel, and most of the other articles of
food in the same proportion. It will be remembered that the rents of the boarding
houses at Lowell, are regulated by a "sliding scale" and are dependent on the
general prices of food-sometimes these have, as is said, been entirely abated, and
the boarding house keepers have received gratuities from the corporation, so as to
make a living without changing the prices of board —and it is fair, therefore, t
include the cost oi board as a part of the wages paidl by the corporations.
We have before, on page 22, average saving in cost of transpor tation and interest on difference of capital - - $44,182 80
Add difference of one-third in cost of board on $17,375 - - 5,791 06
Add difference of 19 cents per bushel on 24,J00 bushels coal, - 4,560 00
Total saving per annum, - - 54,533 86
Deduct $1 50 per ton, supposing the goods are to be sold at Louis ville, St. Louis or Memphis, - - - 900 00
$53,638 86