Natural Resources of the United Slates. By Jacob H. Patton.
(D. Appleton and Co., New York.)—The principal portion of Mr. Patton's work is devoted to the mineral resources of the thirty- two States, which, incalculable as they are, have naturally not attracted so much attention as the more apparent and equally vast agricultural resources. Coal, of course, occupies the first place among minerals, and the United States are better provided with it than is any other country. The estimate of the coal-area at 200,000 square miles is probably rather loose; still, it is near enough to furnish a very striking comparison. For instance, if we add to this 100,000 miles of lignite (which Mr. Patton prefers to another of 150,000!), we get the following proportion of coal- area to total area :—
United States Europe Great Britain 3,000,000 3,750,000 119,000 400,000 20,000 12,000
Besides this disparity, the writer must take into account the average thickness. Europe has loft., America 20 ft. The richest of English seams cannot be more than 3 ft. to Oft., and the number which can be worked standing are not many, if any. Compare with this the anthracite of Pennsylvania, known as the " Mammoth " seam, ranging from 30 ft. to 60 ft., which extends over the whole of the Illeghany anthracite district of 472 square miles, and the " Pittsburg " seam, said to extend over 18,000 miles, and ranging from 8 ft. to 3.6ft. The horisontality of the flOSMS, and their nearness to the
Total Area. Coal-Area.
surface, diminish also the labour spent in working them. Seams of lignite, indeed, are often seen on fire where they outcrop—in Montana, &c., and along the Shoshone River—while one has been burning for thirty years. Mackenzie found one alight in tho North-West in 1789, which Dr. Richardson found still burning forty years after. The great petroleum boom has considerably subsided of late, as the wealth of the Baku region will perhaps displace its consumption in Europe. Still, the supply is enormous. The ores of iron should rank next to coal. Hero we have a, belt of ore 1,000 miles long and 70 wide, so that in actual value it is second only to coal. New Jersey and Pennsylvania have coal and iron in proximity ; Virginia possesses a seam of ore 22 ft. in thick- ness close to coal ; Tennessee and Alabama have beds of ore pushed up through coal-fields, with limestone at hand ! Kentucky has one bed of ore 200 ft. thick, resting directly on limestone. Gold and silver occur in inexhaustible quantities in California, Colorado, and Nevada, whose "Comstock lode," with the mines of Mount Davidson, has produced during the last twenty-eight years 260,000,000. New Almaden divides with the old Almaden the quicksilver supremacy of the world, having produced in 1885 32,073 flasks of 7611b. The United States furnish one-third of the world's gold and one-half of its silver. The largest quantity of copper ore known to exist is in the Lake Superior copper region, where masses of ore of 200 tons' weight have been found. Other States, too, possess valuable copper-mines. The lead-production of the States is larger than that of any country, being some 130,000 tons annually, and the zinc-production occupies the third place. Space forbids us mentioning the various other metals—nickel, antimony, &c.— that are plentiful. Last, but not least, the agricultural resources, as indicated by the vast crops of maize, wheat, rice, the sugar- cane, and other foods grown in that most wonderful of river systems, the Mississippi, are beyond compare. Besides food, there is cotton, which ranks next to hay in value, and tobacco, and the great timber wealth, chiefly pine, varieties of which grow in every latitude. The variety of fruits is large, and includes not only the temperate, but those of the sub-tropical,—the orange, pineapple, and banana. The fish-supply, though plentiful, and including oysters and lobsters, with salmon and the white-fish, does not play such an important part as a means of livelihood as European fisheries. For more facts the reader must go to Mr. Patton's volume.
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