Miscellaneous Remarks on the Prairies and Barrens relative to their Picturesque Features, and to Agriculture and Health, as affected by the peculiarities of these Tracts.
To the traveller, who for several days traverses these prairies and barrens, their appearance is quite uninviting, and even disagreeable. He may travel from morning until night, and make good speed, but on looking around him, he fancies himself at the very spot whence he started. No pleasant variety of hill and dale, no rapidly running brook delights the eye, and no sound of woodland music strikes the ear; but, in their stead, a dull uniformity of prospect "spread out immense." Excepting here and there a tree, or a slight elevation of ground, it is otherwise a dead level, covered with tall weeds and coarse grass. The sluggish rivulets, of a reddish colour, scarcely move perceptibly, and their appearance is as uninviting to the eye, as their taste is disgusting to the palate. Such are the prairies and barrens of the west; but, in order to make ample amends for any deficiency, nature has made them exuberantly fertile. The farmer who settles upon them, by raising cattle, becomes rich with little labour. He ditches those which are too moist for grain; he ploughs and fences them, and raises from seventy to one hundred bushels of maize or Indian corn to the acre, without ever hoeing it. The United States own thousands and thousands of acres of such land in these western States and territories, which, for prompt payment, may be purchased for one dollar and sixty-two and a half cents an acre. One objection to these lands is, the want of timber for fuel and other purposes; and another is, that they are unhealthy: but in many places there is an abundance of peat in the wet prairies, and cultivation will every year render them more and more healthy. Some of them have been cultivated for fifteen or twenty years past with grain, and are as fertile as they ever were. As M. Volney says, "They are the Flanders of America."
Yours, &c. C. A.
Art. III. Account of the Coal Mines in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia.
Art. III. Account of the Coal Mines in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, communicated to the editor in a letter from Mr. John Grammer, Jun.
Petersburgh, Virg. Jan. 28th, 1818.
Dear Sir,
In compliance with your request, that I would send you some account of the Virginia coal pits, I paid a visit to them soon after my return, in company with Mr. R. W. Withers, and I will now proceed to give you the account proposed.
The pits, which we made the particular object of our visit, are situated in the county of Chesterfield, about 14 miles distant, in a direction W. S. W. from Richmond, and 3 miles south of James' River. The country rises gradually from Richmond to the pits; and, from its sandy appearance, is evidently an alluvial deposit, although its substratum is the granite mentioned by Mr. M'Clure, as extending through this state from S. S. W. to N. N. E. The coal is found on the western or upper surface of the granite, coincident with it both in direction and inclination; but whether they come immediately in contact or not, has not yet been ascertained. The 'bed' of coal is supposed by the miners to be coextensive with the granite, and I can discover no very good reason for disagreeing with them in this particular; but, on the contrary, many circumstances concur to strengthen the opinion that it is really coextensive with the granite. The coal is now procured from at least 25 different pits, opened at convenient distances through an extent of from 50 to 70 miles. It every where commences at the upper surface or termination of the body of granite. Some suppose that it is imposed on the granite; and others, that a thin stratum of slate is interposed between the coal and granite. It is always found covered by the slate. The granite is inclined to the horizon at an angle of 45°, and the coal has the same inclination. And since the coal, as far as it has been discovered, is found to accompany and correspond with the granite, why may we not suppose that it continues to accompany the granite, where it has not yet been discovered? At Heth's pits, the coal is 50 feet thick, measured on a line perpendicular to the surfaces of the extreme strata. At some of the pits between Heth's and James' River, it is 30 feet thick; and at the river, not more than 25 feet. The thickness of the coal on the north side of James' River, at the pits in Henrico and Hanover counties, is variable, but at no place greater than 25 feet; and to the south of Heth's, in the pits extending to the Appomatox river, it is still less thick. These facts would induce the supposition, that the coal was deposited in a bed, near the centre of which Heth's pits were sunk. But, on the other hand, the coal is distinctly stratified, and the number of strata increases as the coal proceeds from the surface of the earth; of course, therefore, the farther you proceed from the outer extremity of the coal, the thicker the body of it will be found; and from the inclination of the coal, the farther you are from its outer extremity the deeper it must be under the surface of the earth. Heth's pits are 100 feet deeper than any that have yet been sunk; and all the pits, that I have seen, appear to be nearer to the outer extremity of the coal. We may conclude, therefore, that if the others had been sunk as far from the outer extremity, they would have been as deep, and the coal would have been found as thick in them as in Heth's. Heth's pits, now so called, were first opened about 30 years since, and worked to some considerable extent. Experiencing, however, much inconvenience from the near approach of the works to a part of the coal which was on fire; and finding, from their unskilful mode of mining, that the business was not profitable, they abandoned the works, and filled up their shaft. Some few years after, Mr. Heth obtained possession of the land; and, having imported two Scotch miners, commenced working the coal again. He has now three shafts open, in a line with each other, in the direction of the vein. They are sunk near the brink of a steep hill, which rises about 180 feet from the western bank of a small brook. The depth of one of the shafts is 350 feet. The other two are about 300 feet deep, each. A steam-engine, constructed by Bolton & Watt, is erected at the middle and deepest shaft. It is used exclusively for pumping out water; but I will not trouble you with an account of the modus operandi, as it would be only a repetition of your own description of the same operation at the Cornwall mines. The coal is raised in a box, called by the miners a cowe. These cowes contain about two bushels each, and two of them are alternately rising and descending in each shaft. They are raised by means of ropes, fastened to a simple wheel and crank, which is turned by mules. In sinking their shafts, they cut, in the first place, perpendicularly (i. e. to the surface of the earth) through the coal, to its lower surface; and then turning westwardly, they open a horizontal gallery through the inclination of the vein, to its upper surface; by this means, to use their own terms, "gaining a double cut on it." Their principal gallery passes (in the direction of the vein,) by the mouth of each shaft. Its length is 1350 feet, and it is terminated at each end by a hitch or dyke of hard sandstone. (The passage was stopped with rubbish in such a manner as to prevent me from seeing the stone myself, and the gentleman who escorted me through the mines is my authority for its being sandstone; he might possibly, however, have been mistaken, as it is difficult to ascertain what a stone is, in such a place, until it is broken.) When I was at the pits, they were preparing to blast through this rock. At right angles to the principal gallery, they have opened, at convenient distances apart, shorter galleries, running westwardly, and these are again connected by passages parallel to the first or principal gallery. Pickaxes are the only tools used in working the coal, as it breaks very readily, in the direction of the strata. The roofs of some of the passages are perfectly smooth; and in such, the light of the lamps, reflected from the great variety of colours in the coal, presents a very brilliant sight. The gloomy blackness, however, of most of the galleries, and the strange dress and appearance of the black miners, would furnish sufficient data to the conception of a poet, for a description of Pluto's kingdom. A strong sulphurous acid ran down the walls of many of the galleries; and I observed one of the drains was filled with a yellowish gelatinous substance, which I ascertained, on a subsequent examination, was a yellow, or rather a reddish, oxide of iron, mechanically suspended in water.