GEORGIA. 



311 



zinc, copper, silver, and lead ; also samples of 

 mica for electrical purposes ; granite and slate 

 of the finest quality ; ochers, siennas, and umbers 

 of strong body and good color : tripoli or rot- 

 ten stone, marble in great variety, baryta, asbes- 

 tos, corundum, graphite, oilstones and whet- 

 stones, limestone, glass sand, and fine clay. 



Other Products. The cotton crop for 1894 

 was estimated in November at 1,200,000 bales. 

 The figures of the Department of Agriculture, 

 which were regarded as being too low, gave the 

 estimate of the corn yield of Georgia as 35,144,- 

 000 bushels, an increase of 1,466,000 bushels over 

 that of 1893. The lumber product increased 

 from $737,200 in 1880 to $3,548,972 -in 1890. 



Railroads. The Georgia Pacific road was 

 sold in August to the Southern Railway Com- 

 pany for $500,000. It has about 375 niiles of 

 road already constructed, the main line running 

 between Atlanta and Birmingham, and another 

 part to Columbus, Miss. A new road, the Mid- 

 dle Georgia and Atlantic, connecting Milledge- 

 ville and Covington, was finished in February. 

 Connecting at Covington with the Georgia Rail- 

 road, it gives direct communication between 

 Atlanta and Milledgeville. The Columbian 

 Equipment Company has bought several roads, 

 including the Seaboard Air Line, the East and 

 West, and the Kansas City line. The price 

 paid is given as $3,800,000. The Rome Rail- 

 road, known as the Riverside Route, was sold in 

 October to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. 

 Louis. The Western and Atlantic, the only 

 road owned by the State, is leased to the Nash- 

 ville, Chattanooga and St. Louis at a rental of 

 $35,000 a month. Its gross earnings in 1893 

 were $1,308,941.94. It connects Atlanta and 

 Chattanooga. 



The Southwestern's gross earnings under the 

 receiver for the year 1893 were reported at 

 $1,087,628.49, and the gross expenses of opera- 

 tion at $855,158.22, leaving net earnings for the 

 year $232,470.27. 



An order for the sale of the Georgia Southern 

 and Florida road, under a decree of foreclosure, 

 was given in November, the sale to take place on 

 the first Tuesday in March, 1895. An order was 

 also issued for the sale of the Macon and Bir- 

 mingham on the second Tuesday in January. 



The County-Railroad-Tax Law. A law was 

 passed in 1889 by the terms of which the unlo- 

 cated, transitory property of the railroads in the 

 State was made subject to county tax. This 

 property of a railroad was to be divided for taxa- 

 tion among the counties through which it runs, 

 in the proportion that the number of miles in 

 each county bore to the full mileage of the road 

 in the State. The constitutionality of the law 

 was called in question, and the Columbus South- 

 ern brought on the test by refusing to pay the 

 tax. The Comptroller-General took steps to 

 collect it, and the contest has been going on 

 ever since until the final decision in the United 

 States Supreme Court in January, which was 

 against the railroads. The amount due the 

 State for the back taxes of 1890-'93 is estimated 

 at about $200,000 per annum. 



Fort Pulaski. The southwest corner of the 

 fort was badly damaged, July 20, by an acciden- 

 tal explosion in the storeroom, in which were 

 400 pounds of powder and a quantity of fixed 



ammunition. The sergeant in charge, who was 

 fatally wounded by the explosion, had gone into 

 the storeroom to do some work. He took, as 

 he had been in the habit of doing for some time 

 during the summer months, a handful of dry 

 powder from one of the open casks, wet it, and 

 then placed it in the middle of the room and ig- 

 nited it, in order to drive out the mosquitoes. It 

 seems that, in carrying the handful of powder 

 from the cask day after day, he had left a trail 

 of dry powder from the middle of the floor to 

 the barrel. As soon as he had ignited the pow- 

 der it burned along the trail and the entire 400 

 pounds exploded. 



Storms. A hurricane, which caused much 

 damage in the W T est Indies and in Florida, 

 struck the Georgia coast the last week in Sep- 

 tember, but the damage done was very light 

 compared with that by the storm of 1893, the 

 center of the hurricane passing east of Savan- 

 nah. The warning sent out some days in ad- 

 vance enabled owners of property in the track 

 of the storm to put it in security. A severe 

 electric storm and cyclone passed across the 

 northwestern part of the State Dec. 10. blowing 

 down many buildings and unroofing and other- 

 wise damaging many others. At Kingston it 

 struck the Bartow County convict camp. Tents 

 were carried up into the air, some as high as the 

 tree tops. One of them in falling struck a tent 

 in which several convicts were chained, and one 

 of the convicts was killed. At Little Wills val- 

 ley a child was blown 200 yards with the bed she 

 was sleeping on, but escaped injury. 



County Bonds as Currency. In Floyd 

 County it was proposed to issue county bonds of 

 denominations as low as $1 and $2, to be used 

 as a local currency, and the Federal Treasury 

 Department was asked for a ruling on the sub- 

 ject. The Solicitor of the Treasury replied that 

 in his opinion 



No statute of the United States prohibits the issue 

 of county bond? in any denomination. A county has 

 a right to issue bonds when not in contravention to 

 the Constitution of the State. It may be observed, 

 however, that section 19 of the act approved Feb. 18, 

 1875 (18 Stat. 311), provides: "That every person, 

 firm, association other than national banking associa- 

 tions, and every corporation, State bank, or State 

 banking association, shall pay a tax of 10 per centum 

 on the amount of their own notes used for circulation 

 and paid out by them " ; and 20 provides : " That 

 every such person, firm, association, corporation, State 

 bant, or State banking association, and also every 

 national banking association, shall pay a like tax of 

 10 per centum of the amount of the notes of any per- 

 son, firm, association other than national banking 

 associations, or of any corporation, State bank, or 

 State banking association, or of any town, city, or 

 municipal corporation, used for circulation and paid 

 out by them." It will be seen that the word "coun- 

 ty " is not enumerated among the corporations, bank- 

 ing associations, etc., mentioned in the statute. Nor 

 can the word "notes" be held to include county 

 bonds, and I am therefore also of the opinion that 

 the proposed issue would not be taxable under said 

 statute. 



The Coining Exposition. The exposition 

 to be held in Atlanta in 1895 is to be called the 

 Cotton States and International Exposition. A 

 charter was agreed upon in January, and officers 

 were appointed. It was resolved that $200,000 

 should be the minimum fund subscribed for 



