Alabama Railroad Projections [pp. 196-205]

ALABAMA RAILROAD PROJECTIONS.
According to the best authenticated statistics, the product of the
British coal mines is valued at $96,000,000 per annum.
If to this we add the product of her iron ore, which is estimated
at $82,280,000, we shall have a total of $178,280,000 per annum,
an amount equal to the product of all the gold and silver mines of
the whole world, including those recently discovered and opened in
Australia. From the more fully reported statistics of Belgium, it
appears that we may reckon one miner for every 130 tons of coal;
at this rate the colliers of England number 246,154; and if we allow as many as three souls supported on an average by the labor of
each collier, the total population supported by coal mining in England (not the traffic in coal) amount to 738,462. From the census
of 1850, the product of 1,165,544 tons of iron required the labor of
57,021 hands, which is about 20 tons to the hand. At this rate the
product of British iron supports 110,000 laborers, or a population
of 330,000 souls. Those engaged in polishing and giving to iron its
thousand useful shapes, are not reckoned in this estimate, but those
only who are engaged at the furnace and the forge. So that we have
a total population of more than a million of souls sustained by the
mining operations of England, to say nothing of still larger numbers
sustained by the collateral employments to which coal and iron have
given rise, and this within a district of country not very much larger
than the State of Alabama.
But we have an equally striking example in the case of IPennsylvania, and particularly in the increase of the wealth and population
of its two principal cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
At the beginning of the present century Philadelphia was the first
city of the Union, in point of population, wealth, and commerce.
This was owing chiefly to the fact that before the period of canals,
and railroads, and steamboats, it was the most accessible port to the
young States growing up in the valley of the Ohio. Her commerce, however, was almnost entirely destroyed by the policy of New-York, which
opened up along the valley of the Mohawk, a highway between the
lakes and the Hudson. The cost of transportation firom BuIfflalo to
New-York, which had been one hundred dollars per ton, was thereby reduced to seven dollars per ton. The lakes thus became the
channel of communication between the States of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois, and the Atlantic, and such they have continued ever since.
The Western and foreign trade of Philadelphia declined as rapidly as
that of New-York increased, as appears from the following table:
Tonnage. Imports and Exports.
Year. New-York. Philadelphia. New-York. Philadelphia.
1800....... 59,000.. 103,011..........
1810....... 250,000.. 125,000..........
1820.. 265,000. 84,000........ 37,000,000.. 21,000,000
1830....... 280,000.. 72,000........ 56,000,000.. 13,000,000
1840... 450,000.. 103,944........ 92,000,000.. 14,000,000
1850....... 836,000.. 206,497....... 198,000,000.. 16,000,000
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