No. 199.] 399 



siderable manufacturing settlement is established near Cumberland. 

 Rolling-millsj factories, forges, furnaces, with other branches of in- 

 dustry are springing into existence over the whole State. Agriculture 

 in Maryland within the last few years has undergone a decided im- 

 provement. 



If Virginia, my own State, had commenced the same systems of 

 improvement thirty years ago, she has now in progress and in contem- 

 plation, she would now have a population of over three millions of 

 souls, Richmond, Petersburg and Portsmouth in the east, and Wheel- 

 ing, Wettsburgh, and Charleston in the west, are very considerable 

 manufacturing cities and towns. I find that Richmond, Lynchbury 

 and Alexandria are represented in this fair, in cotton and wollen goods, 

 and also tobacco. She has about sixty-five millions of dollars invested 

 in railroads, canals, with other modes of land and water transportation 

 and in mining and manufactures. When her present railroads now 

 in progress shall be completed, with those already existing, she will 

 have a chain of railway of about sixteen hundred miles, and all within 

 her own territory, giving her the greatest length of railroad of any 

 State in the Union. The Lynchburg and Tennessee railroad passes over 

 a region of country the most remarkable on the face of the earth. 

 The richness of its soil and the immensity of its minerals are amazing 

 to behold. The State Geologist in canvassing this part of Virginia 

 pronounced the State an " Empire within itself." Gypsum, iron, 

 lead, zinc, copper, bituminous, semi-bituminous, carmel, and anthracite 

 coal exists to an extent almost unlimited, and with this enumeration, 

 the story of its immense treasures hardly begins. The completion of 

 this road in connection with the Tennessee link, will establish an un 

 interrupted railway from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi at Memphis. 

 The aggregate length of her canals are now next to New- York. 



Another road to the west is now fairly under \vay. It is completed 

 or under contract one hundred and forty miles west of Richmond. 

 The road is to strike the Ohio three hundred and fifty miles below the 

 Pennsylvania road , and two hundred and fifty miles below the Baltimore 

 and Ohio railroad. This great central road passes by her numerous min- 

 eral springs, and over a rich mineral and agricultm-al region. There 

 is a strong probability now that Virginia will reach the Ohio by rail- 



