Virginia; Her Internal Improvements and Development [pp. 291-304]

VIRGINIA-HER INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 301
on, or immediately in the neighborhood of, the very spot where the furnaces are
erected."
And still another English writer (Blackwell), while asserting that "in
no other countries does this proximity of iron ore and coal exist to the
same extent as in England," goes on to describe how the railroad, which
is itself the creation of iron and coal, fosters these two mighty interests,
by bringing the two minerals together.
Professor Page, the learned English geologist, enforces these truths in
more elevated and eloquent language:
"So long as man depends upon the forests for his fuel, his mastery over the
metals is limited, and his mechanical appliances restricted. But when he has once
learned the uses of coal, and can obtain it in fair supplies, his metal-working
powers expand; and his forges, factories, steam-engines, steamships, gas-works,
railroads, and electric telegraphs, become the necessary developments of this new
acquirement. Once acquainted with these and similar appliances, man takes a stand on
a higher platform, gains new ascendancy over the powers of nature, and overcomes,
in a great measure, the obstacles which time and nature opposed to his operations.
.. As a nation, we cannot too highly exalt the importance of our coal-fields;
our mechanical, manufacturing and commercial greatness, is intimately bound up
with their existence... A high degree of civilization, as the histories of
ancient nationalities demonstrate, may be attained without the possession of coalfields; but the peculiar phases of civilization, in all that relates to mechanical
appliances, manufactures, locomotion, and inter-communication, are the direct
results of coal and iron. The fine arts, literature, philosophy, social refinement,
and political institutions have existed, and may yet exist, where coal-fields are
unknown; but that machine power which coal and iron have put into the hands of
man to subdue the forces of nature, and thereby promote the wider advancement of
his race, intellectually as well as materially, is a thing dependent alone upon the
existence of a coal formation. There is no artificial source of heat so compact, so
portable, so safe, and so readily available as coal; no substance so adaptive, so'
strong, and so. enduring as iron. These two substances, coal and iron, have been
the main factors in all recent progress; and that which most broadly distinguishes
the Britain of the present, from the Britain of the preceding centuries, is the extended and extending use of these substances through the instrumentality of the
steam-engine."
I needi add nothing to the utterances of these eminent British authorities, in enforcement of the proposition that modern States cannot keep
abreast of the times in these wonderful movements, without possessing
abundant stores of the finer qualities of iron and coal, lying in accessible
and favorable positions for their employmlnent. I will simply cite a few
facts in corroboration of the declarations of these writers. Before the
successful use of pit-coal in smelting iron, the production of pig-iron in
England was (in 1788) only 68,000 tons in the year. Since then the production has grown, in 1806, to 258,206 tons; in 1854, to 3,069,838 tons;
and in 1865, to 5,000,000 tons. Before the impetus was given to manufactures by this important discovery, England was agricultural, and
exported grain; since then she has been a yearly increasing importer of
grain. Her average annual exportation of wheat in the decade closing
with 1750 was 3,027,616 bushels. In the decade which ended with 1860,
her average annual importation of wheat was 40,250,128 bushels; the
miraculous growth of her manufacturing populations far outstripping her
agricultuxal capacity of production. The prosperity and wealth of Eng land are now a proverb. But before she successfully applied pit-coal to
the production of iron and to the development of manufactures, the
languishing condition of all branches of British industry was the source
of constant complaint. When Andrew Yarranton went to Holland
towards the close of the seventeenth century, to make discoveries of useful
manufactures, he said it was because in England