No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 467 



creased cousuuipliun on aicouut of its uses as au iiisiilatoi- iu electric 

 wiring". 



The demand for barite (sulphate of barytes) is increasing- and be- 

 lief now is that there is a large body of this mineral near Bridge- 

 port, Bedford county. Heretofore most of it was mined iu Berks, 

 Blair, Clearfield, Franklin, Fulton and Huntingdon counties, though 

 in none of the counties as extensively as is southern Virginia. It 

 is worked up (sparingly) into barium salts and as an ingredient in 

 paints. When used too freely iu the latter it becomes an adul- 

 terant. 



The extraction of bromine from the briue of abandoned gas and oil 

 wells is receiving atteutiou from a number of capitalists, and the pro- 

 duct will be materially increased iu Pennsylvania this year. 



Clays of various qualities are more freely and eagerly sought for 

 than heretofore. Sometimes for days that will be the subject in our 

 mails. It seems that every county has a large supply of one kind 

 or another. So important has the clay industry become that a num- 

 ber of the states have issued separate reports on the subject. The 

 State of Xew York has published a volume of over 000 pages on clays 

 found within her borders. It would well repay the Commonwealth 

 of Pennsylvania to follow suit, as we have larger bodies and in some 

 instances of finer quality than any of our sister states. Men of capi- 

 tal go elsewhere than to Pennsylvania for clays because other com- 

 munities are more liberal in their publications given all the informa- 

 tion possible on the subject. Much foreign capital skips over Penn- 

 sylvania for investment elsewhere, first, because we have no State 

 museum of our natural resources, secondly, because our economical 

 geological and mineralogical literature has been so scant, from lack 

 of appropriation; and thirdly, because every state surrounding ours 

 has a salaried State Geologist who is liberally paid to gather up all 

 useful data and publish them iu separate annual reports, whereby 

 capital is attracted to their territory, large industries established, 

 and communities made rich and prosperous. It is rather mortifying 

 to receive voluminous annual geological and .mineralogical reports 

 from other states — New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, West 

 Virginia, etc. — and not to be able to send any in exchange. If it 

 were not that our resources of coal, petroleum and natural gas are in 

 such excess, conipared with most of our neighbors, we would be fall- 

 ing rapidly behind iu population and prosi)erity, because we are not 

 advertising our natural wealth like most of our sister Common- 

 wealths. 



During the past year coal mining has been carried on more ex- 

 tensively than her<^tofore and our output would have been much 

 heavier if the transportation companies had supplied the cars. I 

 examined a number of large bituminous coal mines where the men 

 could work but little more llian half time because of scarcity of cars 

 to haul the product away to market. This is true notably in Alle- 

 gheny,. Greene and Washington counties, where I spent nearly a week 

 under ground. Some time was also spent investigating or locating 

 coal lands in West Virginia, a state of marvelous natural resources 

 both of coal, gas, petroleum and timber. The coal beds of Western 

 Pennsylvania extend through our neighbor on the southwest, and 

 clear on to Alabama, the total area underlaid with good, merchant- 

 able coal, being more than 80,000 square miles, or nearly twice as 



