WEST VIRGINIA. 57 



ttirage to their summits when denuded of tlieir heavy timber. Coal, iron, and 

 limestone are abundant, and other minerals exist. 



Tucker county lies betAveeu Randolph and Preston, south of the Baltimore 

 and Ohio railroad ; has a small area, containing farm lands, 11,101 acres im- 

 proved and 43.559 unimproved, with but 448 houses, and producing 19,955 

 bushels of corn, 6,049 of oats, 4,346 of potatoes, (and even a few sweet pota- 

 toes,) 2,483 pounds of honey, and other products in proportion. 



Preston, the most northern of these mountain counties, wild and compara- 

 tively inaccessible as it is, and undeveloped in its vast mineral resources, still 

 shows, fror^ slight beginnings of improvement made in the last few years and 

 the recent opening of railroad communication tln-ough its borders, what com- 

 fort and beauty and wealth will one day be added, by labor and skill and en- 

 terprise, to the wild attractions of these highlands. Let the reader compare 

 the facts of its progress and production with the exhibit made by other moun- 

 tain counties equally favored by nature. ' 



The population is 13,312. It has 92,663 of improved land in farms, and 

 195,351 acres of unimproved, worth $2,257,314 — nearly eight dollars per acre. 

 Its flocks number 19,084 sheep; cattle, 11,430; horses and mules, 3,367; ani- 

 mals slaughtered yearly, SS0,407 ; wool, 47,493 pounds ; butter, 340,988 

 pounds; cheese, 9,142 pounds; and value of live stock, $461,133. With all 

 these twenty-three thousand domestic animals, so mild is the winter of these 

 mountain valleys that but 5,308 tons of hay are cut, and 104,317 bushels of 

 oats harvested. Of corn there is produced 71,063 bushels ; wheat, 8,933 

 bushels; rye, 10,778 bushels; potatoes, 44,655 bushels; and buckwheat, 95,357 

 bushels. Flax is grown to the extent of 5,355 pounds of lint; maple sugar, 

 16,723 pounds; honey, 15,474 pounds; maple molasses, 1,721 gallons; and 

 (strange as it may seem for mountain regions) sorghum sirup, 539 gallons. 



With abundant water power, there is as yet little manufacturing done. There 

 are four small woollen factories, several shops for the manufacture of "shooks," 

 (stuff for barrel staves,) tanneries, &:c. 



The following extract from correspondence of the department is furnished 

 by H. Hagans, of Brandonville, in Preston county : 



"Preston county, preographically, lies in the right angle formed by the Maryland and Penn- 

 sylvania lines, and is several miles west of the main Alleghany range, though east of, and 

 bounded on the west by. Laurel hill, the most western member of the great Apaiachiau chain. 

 The county has an average width, from east to west, of twenty miles, and is traversed by 

 CJieat river from its south end north some twenty miles to the mouth of Muddy creek, within 

 fifteen miles of the Pennsylvania line, where it deflects to the northwest, forcing its way 

 through lofty hills, and Laurel hill itself, and debouches into the MoLongahcla just within 

 the limits of Pennsylvania. Sandy creek, rising in Pennsylvania, east of Laurel hill, takes 

 a south(!rly course, and joins Cheat river before that stream passes through the mountain. 

 Thus, Preston county is chiefly included in a basin, bounded on the west by Laurel hill, and 

 by a coterminous raT'.ge on the east, called Briery mountain, which mountain, however, runs 

 several miles west of, and nearly laterally with, the Maryland line, and the space between 

 the said line and mountain is occupied chiefly by a part of the region called the. ' Yough 

 Glades.' 



"Although our county lies principally in a basin, it is for more than two-thirds of its length, 

 fiom north to south, geologically more elevated than the mountains on either side, which is 

 shown by the eastern declination of the great limestone vein which crops out on the west, at 

 the crest of Laurel hill, and the western declination of the same stratum crojjping out at the 

 crest of Briery mountain on the east, other rocks and minerals conforming substantially 

 thereto. A flue illustration and proof of this fact is afforded where Cheat river cuts its way 

 through Laurel hill. In the centre of this rugged passway, this great calcareous stratum is 

 seen eight hundred feet above the troubled river, and, traveUing up the struggling stream, it 

 declines eastward at the rate of about two and a half degrees, and at a short distance below 

 the mouth of Muddy creek, where the river has made its course northwest, the limestone 

 plunges under the river bed, and is seen no more until it rises and makes its eastern out-crop, 

 as above stated. Above this great limestone seam are found nearly all our nunerais — that 

 is to say, a six, a four, an eight feet, and some minor seams of bituminous coal, all of which, 

 however, vary in thickness, as well as in qualitj-, in different localities. In the southern sec- 

 tiou of the county, and especially at Tumieltou and Newburg, on the Baltimore and Ohio 



