[GILPIN] COAL ]\tINING IN PICTOU COUNTY 173 



It may be questioned if a moderate expenditure for dredginij^ the 

 river, even if not aecomi:)anied by the privilege of levying tolls, coupled 

 with an improved system of transport and loading, would not have 

 secured sufficient shipping facilities to have permitted' the postponement 

 of the construction of a costly railroad and wharf for a number of years. 



It would almost appear that a spirit of vindictiveness against New 

 Glasgow actuated the company in abandoning the old railway and 

 wharfs valued at £15,376, and constructing a new road and shipping 

 place at a cost of £76,109, when the expenditure of a few thousand pounds 

 would have deepened the channel sufficiently to permit the greater num- 

 ber of the vessels then engaged in coal transport to load directly from 

 the coal shoots near Xew Glasgow. 



The new railroad was about six miles in length to an excellent ship- 

 ping point on the west side of the East Eiver, a little above its mouth. 

 The location and supervision of the construction of the road was entrusted 

 to a local surveyor who built it on the principles most approved of in 

 England. As nearly five miles of the road was level and the remainder 

 a very easy grade, it will readily be seen that its cost 'was heavy. The 

 engineer's estimate w^s £35,574 ; the actual cost, £76,109. At that date 

 roads were being constructed over more difficult ground in the United 

 States at from £4,000 to £5,000 per mile. The road was equipped with 

 three locomotives and about one hundred and fifty wagons, each holding 

 two chaldrons or about 7,000 lbs. of coal. Shipments were carried on 

 over this road until 1889, when the Government road to Fisher's Grant, 

 and the pier of the Acadia Coal Company at that point, were utilized. 

 The locomotives originally introduced were kept in good repair and 

 effective service until a short time before the closing of the road, and 

 were interesting specimens of the earliest stages of railroad transportation. 



Before 1827 the coal was sold at 13s. 6d. per chaldron, but there is 

 evidence to show that whenever practicable a higher price was demanded. 

 Up to 1836 the price averaged per Newcastle chaldron about 14s. 6d. at 

 the mine, the cost of the coal being about 12s. A complaint that the 

 coal was being sold locally at higher figures than before elicited a state- 

 ment that no profit was made on the coal owing to the costly nature of 

 the establishment. This can readily be credited when out of 618 men 

 there were only 146 miners, and no less than 40 men employed at the 

 foundry, and as many more in the brickyard. As the proportion of coal 

 miners to other labourers was so small, it is not surprising that the returns 

 showed a meagre margin over the cost of the coal, and left next to nothing 

 to meet the fixed charges. 



From a report of a committee of the House of Assembly in 1839, it 

 appears that the coal was being sold in Pictou at 18s. 3|s., and that the 

 total average price was l7s. This inquiry arose out of a formal com- 

 plaint by the people of Pictou that they were being subjected to a mon- 



