The Southern Literary Messenger, Volume I., 1834-35

Observations

On the National Importance of Mineral Possessions, and the Cultivation of Geological Inquiry.

The importance of the metallic ores and other mineral substances, considered as instrumental in the advancement of national prosperity, is obvious to every one. In announcing that a certain country possesses extensive and skilfully worked mines, either of coal, of iron, copper, tin, lead, or other of the numerous ores, we at once proclaim her wealth in terms that all must understand. They are readily perceived to be essential to the prosecution of the various arts and manufactures that flourish in the present age, and to form a fruitful source of wealth to the country in which they happen to abound.

The facility, however, with which one nation can procure these from another, owing to the free intercourse and system of exchange subsisting between them, which thus enables a country, barren itself in mineral treasures, to attain a respectable rank among the wealthy nations of the earth, occasions us to assign to the possession of them within our own soil, an importance infinitely less than is due. We are disposed to consider them too much in the light of mere articles of export, and valuable, chiefly as commodities of exchange: or, if we do not bestow too much consequence on their exchangeable value, we at least allow too little to their intrinsic worth. Yet, when we assign to the products of the mineral kingdom their proper rank in the scale of national blessings, they take their place beside that of a fertile soil, or a salubrious climate,—blessings we may still enjoy, though we adopt the exclusive and selfish policy of ancient Egypt, or of modern China. In short, we should value these mineral productions, not as we value one of our great staple commodities, tobacco, on account of its nominal price, but on their own account—not by the gain derived from parting with, but that derived from keeping them. Nor should we confine our solicitude to procuring now, on the easiest terms, the means of supplying our immediate wants; but with a more comprehensive view, look forward and provide for the period, when the growing wants of the unborn millions destined to people our almost boundless territory, will create a demand for these substances, in quantities which either foreign nations, with comparatively exhausted mines, will be unable to supply, or to purchase which, we must appropriate that produce (the produce of a large portion of the surface of the soil,) which should be devoted to the more legitimate purpose of furnishing to its inhabitants the means of subsistence and employment.

We are apt too to forget, that were it possible, with or without the intervention of war, for a people to be cut off from all intercourse with other nations, and to be destitute themselves of mineral resources, that their very existence, at least as a civilized people, would be next to impossible. That the different degrees of refinement attained by the human race in different periods of antiquity, are marked with a precision sufficiently distinct, by their acquaintance with the metals, and the uses to which they are susceptible of being applied: and, that nearer our own times, the aboriginal inhabitants of our own continent were found existing in a higher or lower stage of progress towards civilization, in proportion to their knowledge or their ignorance of these substances.

To trace a little further, the connection of mineral wealth with national prosperity, we may observe, that the wants of a people may be said to be mainly supplied, when they are provided with food, clothing and habitation, and they are better or worse supplied, according to the nature and abundance of the materials they possess for the fabrication of these, and the perfection of the instruments they may have, proper for fashioning them into convenient forms. The nation which can command for its subsistence, in greatest profusion, the varied vegetable and animal productions, of whatever clime, that constitute the necessaries and luxuries of life; whose well stored magazines of merchandize furnish, for its apparel, the finest fabrics and the richest stuffs; and which can boast, for its places of dwelling, the most commodious, splendid and durable edifices, with the various conveniences that necessarily keep pace with improvements in these, may be said, physically considered, to have well nigh attained the pinnacle of prosperity. Let us observe in what manner the mineral substances to which we have alluded, contribute to accomplish this end. Let us suppose man rude and barbarous, for the first time, to be presented with that best of gifts—iron; and for the sake of proceeding, let us anticipate the slow progress of events, and give it to him in the form into which he would soon convert it—that of the simplest implements. Instantly his habits are changed: his wandering mode of life is abandoned: his abode becomes fixed, and he himself devoted to labor. In a little time, the rugged face of nature is made to assume a softened and a brightened aspect, and to smile upon him with a novel beauty. The ample and ancient forest, his former range, falls with continued crash, day after day, beneath the repeated stroke of his axe: on all sides, broad and sunny plains open around him: the broken soil heaved up to the influence of the atmosphere by his plough, or stirred with his hoe, begins to yield in abundance the fruits of the earth; the prostrate timber rent asunder by his wedge, and hewed, sawed, or chiseled into appropriate shapes, furnishes materials of building: these, arranged and secured by means of pins or nails of the same material, rise in orderly succession one above another, till there is erected for his habitation a comfortable and commodious dwelling:—while the surrounding fields, now that he has ample food in store for their support, are overspread with the flocks he has domesticated, to provide for his use unfailing supplies of clothing and subsistence. Already he has made himself acquainted with the rudiments of agriculture, architecture and manufactures, and has laid the foundation of the useful arts.

Compare his condition now, with that in which he existed before his acquaintance with the uses of iron: contrast the savage of the forest with the cultivator of the field—the scanty and precarious sustenance of the one, with the regular and abundant subsistence of the other—the covering of skin, with the garment of wool—the hut, with the commodious dwelling—the hardships attendant on one mode of life, with the numerous conveniences that follow as a necessary train to the other; and from this rough-drawn and very imperfect outline, there may be formed some slight idea of the revolution effected in the condition of man, even by a limited acquaintance with the simpler uses of this single, though most important of all the mineral substances.

It is scarcely necessary to direct the reader's attention to the accession to the comforts, the conveniences, the elegancies of life, or to the vast acquisitions to the power of man, which, in successive periods of time, have been gained by a more extended and familiar acquaintance with the various properties of iron, and the innumerable purposes to which, with increased advantage, human ingenuity has discovered it to be applicable. It is sufficient to turn the eye on some great and populous city—the seat of busy manufactures;—on a Sheffield, a Manchester, or a Birmingham,—those nurseries of the arts, and workshops of the world: to view its immense establishments in active operation, and look on the tens of thousands of the industrious they maintain and employ. It is sufficient to hear the eternal din and incessant roar of stupendous machinery, laboring in the service of man, in obedience to laws and impulses he has given to it;—to see its multifarious and complicated parts performing each its allotted movement;—swinging heavily, with measured time, and force, or shooting to and fro with regulated rapidity; revolving slowly, and lazily around, or flying with inconceivable velocity, and whirling smoothly, each in its proper sphere,—moving, all in harmonious cooperation, to effect some beneficial end, with a precision unerring—as if impressed with the intelligence and volition of animated being. It is sufficient, to be convinced of the great acquisition we have in iron, to witness the wondrous effects of the steam-engine,—that giant machine, which performs to our hands the labor of countless hosts; which enables us to penetrate into the secret recesses of the solid earth, and to master the ocean, and the very elements themselves. "It rows, it pumps, it excavates, it carries, it draws, it lifts, it hammers, it spins, it weaves, it prints;"—that masterpiece of human skill, which, in the language of the celebrated Doctor Black, is the most valuable present ever made by philosophy to the arts.

Again, when we behold materials of every known description, in the rude state in which nature presents them, before they have been subjected to the first elementary process in their manufacture, and look upon them, after they have undergone the various mechanical operations to which they are successively submitted, and are produced in a finished state, of every form and fashion that can minister to the wants, or gratify the caprice of man, we almost doubt their identity, and are at a loss which most to admire, the utility of the substance by means of which so wonderful a change has been effected, or the sagacity of him, who moulds and constructs it into complicated machines, to which he gives motion and almost life, to work out his own advantage. And, lastly, when there is displayed before us the endless variety of manufactured goods and wares;—-of instruments, and implements, and utensils;—of machines, and engines, and mechanical contrivances to abridge human labor; when we gaze on the immense fleets that wait to receive them, in an hundred ports of some great manufacturing country, or survey the seas whitened with the sails, and heaving beneath the burthens of whole navies, busied in transporting them to distant and expectant nations, and even piloted in their course, through the wide and trackless waste of waters, with unerring accuracy, by a property peculiar to iron,—we turn from the contemplation more fully persuaded of the extent to which we are indebted to this single metal, to which in truth, if we except the spontaneous productions of nature, (of little comparative value unwrought,) we owe every thing we possess.

We are enabled, perhaps, by this review, hasty though it has been, of the numerous and varied uses of iron, better to estimate its real worth, and we do not hesitate to assign to it, an importance among the elements of national prosperity of the highest order, and to consider it, what truly it is, the most valuable of all acquisitions. We look upon the country rich in the possession of its ores, with feelings of rivalry, and are prompted to emulate her in acquiring this true species of substantial wealth. Our national ambition is excited to grasp at this mighty instrument of power, and our energies should be roused into ceaseless activity, until, by untiring assiduity in surveying and exploring our own tempting regions, guided by the lights borrowed from geological science, we succeed in enlarging our mineral domain to at least an equal extent.

Before proceeding to the consideration of any other of the substances we have proposed to treat of, it may not be improper, here, to annex (more in the form of notes) a few facts illustrative of the history of the very interesting mineral which has occupied our attention in the preceding remarks.

Of all the metals, iron is the most widely and universally distributed, being confined to no particular formation as its repository, but discoverable in every class of rocks, from the oldest granite to the newest alluvial deposit. It is also the most abundant of the metallic ores: whole mountains composed of it occurring in the northern parts of the globe. As instances of the great masses in which it is found, it may be mentioned, that the sparry iron ore found in the floetz limestone in Stiria, has been worked to an immense extent and with great profit, for more than twelve hundred years: and, that the Rio mountain in the island of Elba, five hundred feet in height and three miles in circumference, known at an early day to the Romans, (in which mines are still wrought,) is wholly composed of specular iron ore. Though this metal, as we have stated, exists in every kind of rock and soil, it has been remarked, that the dark oxides or its richest ores are confined exclusively to primitive rocks. The ores are generally, it has also been observed, of a purer quality, and more abundant in northern regions. What are denominated iron-stones, or the ores containing a larger proportion of earthy matter, are found in the secondary strata, and exist commonly in great abundance in those accompanying coal.

Although iron was known in the remotest ages, and was in use among some particular nations even at a time anterior to the deluge, according to Moses, (Gen. iv. 22) we are not to presume it was in general use:

"Him Tubal nam'd, the Vulcan of old times
The sword and falchion their invention claim;
And the first smith was the first murderer's son."

Nor must we forget, that the useful arts, and among them the art of working metals, were lost to the generality of mankind, in consequence of that universal calamity. Gold, silver and copper seem to be the metals of which the knowledge and uses were earliest recovered after that period; owing, no doubt, to their being oftener found on the surface of the earth, or in the beds of streams—to their more frequent occurrence in the metallic state, and to the greater ease with which they are separated from their ores. Copper, though greatly inferior to iron, yet possesses considerable tenacity, and sufficient hardness to furnish a substitute in the construction of cutting instruments, and either pure, or alloyed with tin to increase its hardness, constituted the materials of which were formed the swords, hatchets, and artist's tools of many ancient nations. The arms and tools of the American nations were similarly made, and by means of this awkward substitute, the Mexicans and Peruvians made considerable advances in manufactures and the arts—greater perhaps than any other people unacquainted with the use of iron. The inconvenience experienced by these nations from their ignorance of this metal, and the awkward expedients to which in consequence they had recourse, afford an important lesson in teaching us what estimate to make of the value of a substance, which, its very requisiteness to every common purpose of life so familiarizes us with, as to cause us daily to pass by with little or no notice. The evils which we are taught would inevitably follow its loss, make a deeper impression of its importance, than all the advantages, manifold though they be, which in heedless enjoyment, we are continually deriving from its possession. With no better substitute for iron tools in cutting stone, than the sharp edged fragments of flint,—without carriages, or machines of any kind,—how tedious and laborious must have been the work of separating from the quarry, of shaping, of transporting to a distance, and elevating to a proper height, the huge blocks of stone with which the Mexicans and Peruvians contrived to erect their temples and other public edifices!—structures that have commanded the admiration of more modern nations. What toil and what time must have been expended in the operation of dividing a single block, by means of continued rubbing of one rock against another! What pains and what efforts of ingenuity must it have cost the artizans of Montezuma, without the aid of nails, to form the ceilings of his palace, by an arrangement of the planks so artificial, as mutually to sustain each other! With what eagerness the Peruvian would have accepted nails of iron, to fasten together the pieces of timber he employed in building, and have laid aside as worthless, the cords of hemp his necessities compelled him to apply to that purpose! What an acquisition would have been even a common needle, in the place of the thorn, to which, in the fashioning of their cotton garments, they were obliged to have recourse!

Iron differs from the metals we have mentioned as earliest known, by its occurring rarely in a metallic state, and being then most difficult of fusion: its uses were in consequence a later discovery. The methods, besides, of disengaging it from the ores in which it is usually found in nature, are far from being obvious, consisting of various processes,—such as pounding, roasting, smelting in contact with charcoal, to render it fusible; requiring too, additional heatings and hammerings to render it malleable, and a still more complicated process to convert it into steel. Yet it was in use, as has been remarked, in very remote ages: Moses, in Deuteronomy, makes frequent mention of it. He speaks of mines of iron, and alludes to furnaces for melting it; and from the circumstance of swords, knives, axes, and tools for cutting stone, constructed of that metal, being mentioned by the same authority, we are entitled to conclude that the art of tempering and converting it into steel was also known. The mode of tempering it was certainly known to the Greeks as early as the days of Homer; for that poet borrows from the art some of his similes. Thus in the Oddyssey:

And as, when arm'rers temper in the ford
The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword,
The red hot metal hisses in the lake,
So in his eye-ball hiss'd the plunging stake.

It is by its conversion into steel, that we are furnished with a material retentive of an edge, and adapted to cutting the hardest substances, and are enabled to fabricate that most important class of implements, edge-tools, all of which, from the ponderous pit saw to the finest lancet, are formed in part with this metal.

It was not, however, until very late in modern times, that we may be said to have acquired absolute dominion over this individual of the mineral kingdom, so as to be able at command, to press it into service, whatever may be its locality, in relation to the surface of the earth or its interior. For, before the improvements made in the steam-engine by the discoveries of Watts, we were limited in the power of availing ourselves of the known existence of iron, however abundant in any particular spot, by the necessity of the concurrence of a stream of water in the same location with that of the metal, as a means of impelling the machinery for producing the blast requisite in the operation of smelting. Since those improvements, steam power may be employed wherever the ore and fuel is found in sufficient quantities to authorize the erection of furnaces; and the manufacture of iron has in consequence, especially in Great Britain, risen into great importance. The annual produce of smelted ore in that kingdom, is estimated now to be about seven hundred thousand tons.

We cannot avoid suggesting here, to the owners and workers of coal property in Virginia, the propriety of investigating the strata through which they necessarily pass in their mining operations, with reference to the discovery of argillaceous iron-stone, with more minuteness than hitherto they have done—if indeed, (which we are inclined to doubt,) their attention has been in any degree directed to such examination. It is from this species of iron-stone, accompanying coal-strata, that Great Britain derives at least nineteen twentieths of the metals which she possesses in such abundance, and to which, in connection with its convenient location in the immediate vicinity of the fuel necessary in its reduction, she owes her towering eminence as a manufacturing country. The coal formation of Virginia contains the same clays, shales, sandstones and slates, and these are characterized by the same vegetable impressions that mark the series in other countries. And may we not reasonably ask, why should we hastily conclude this usual concomitant of the coal strata in England, Scotland, France and Germany, to be wanting here; or rather, why may not we hope to find it equally abundant in our own coal district. We are induced to urge this suggestion the more, from the circumstance, that this species of ore presents in its external characters, so little indicative of its metallic nature or chemical composition, that but for its greater weight, it might well escape the notice of an inexperienced or unobservant eye, unless arrested by some such hope as we have been induced to hold out. Even in England, where from its great abundance it might have been expected to be generally better known, instances have occurred in some districts, of its being wastefully misapplied, through ignorance, to the common purpose of mending the roads. The immense benefits that would result from success attending a research directed to this object, as well to the city of Richmond, as to a few fortunate individuals, are too obvious to require comment. It is sufficient to remark, that it would prove an abundant source of individual wealth, and would, in connection with her other great advantages and increasing facilities of transportation, be the means of elevating the metropolis of Virginia to an exalted rank in the class of large cities, and enable her to vie in importance with the proudest seat of manufactures, or the most extensive emporium of commerce.

It was our intention, as our title announces, to have passed rapidly on, and glanced at the history, uses, and national importance of coal, and some of the most valuable of the other mineral substances, as well as to have pointed out in a short series of remarks, some of the advantages to be derived from the cultivation and pursuit of mineralogical and geological inquiries in connection with this subject; but we have loitered on the way, and the contracting limits of our paper admonish us to hasten to a close. We may at another time, if leisure permit, and if on reflection, we deem our endeavors at all likely to attract attention to subjects which have too long been almost universally neglected, again resume, after our own fashion, a subject which under better management, could not fail to prove interesting as well as instructive.

GAMMA.

Henrico, April 28th, 1835.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.