239 



"The coal (Illinois) seut to this market is from the surface, and is 

 highly impregnated with sulphur, and for the last year has not been 

 much used. It slacks after exposure to the air. It is not used for 

 making gas, here or anyw'here else, the Ohio and Erie coals taking the 

 preference. As to coke, there is some of it manufactured in the south- 

 western part of the State, for St. Louis, but it seems to me that coal with 

 less sulphur must make better coke. The railroads will soon create a 

 demand for coke. On the first of Jidy, 124 trains a day will come in 

 and go out of Chicago — 62 each way." 



TRANSPORTATION OF COAL. 



The transportation of coal to inarket, is the next inquiry. 



In the fiist place, I would state that it is proposed in forming a coal 

 company, not to locate its operations at any given point, but to embrace 

 for its sphere of action several counties within the coal limits, and thus 

 secure to the company in its articles of incorporation, the right to mine 

 coal in any one or more of the counties so named, at any one or more 

 points where satisfactory coal lands shall be obtained, on or near the 

 cheapest line of present railway transportation. The route of the Oak- 

 land and Ottawa i-aihoad, now in procees of construction, passes over 

 the coal basin, but at no point nearer to the Red Cedar River coal mine 

 than twenty miles, which point on that raihoad is about fifteen miles 

 westerly of Fentonville, making the whole distance by such route, as fol- 

 lows : 



From the mine to the Oakland and Ottawa road, 20 miles. 



From thence to Fentonville, 15 " 



Fentonville to Pontiac, 25 " 



Pontiac to Detroit, .,..^ 25 " 



Total 85 



This route will require the building of a new railway of twenty miles, 

 from the mine to the Oakland and Ottawa Railroad. But there are 

 other routes which wiU shorten the distance from the mine to Detroit. 

 The distance from the mine to Fentonville is about thirty miles, and the 

 distance from the mine to the Central Railroad, at Dexter, is also about 

 thirty miles. Fentonville and Dexter being each fifty miles distant 

 from Detroit, the length of either route will be the same. 



