P OL YTECHKIC ASSO CIA TION. 733 



accompanied by Mr. Giles Edwards, of Roup's Valley, a "Welsh 

 Pennsylvanian, and to his exertions is due much of the accuracy of 

 my information. The Cahawba river is shown ; the Grand Trunk 

 Air Line railroad from Mobile to the A. & C. R. R., at Birmingham, 

 runs a little north. This road will, for twenty-five miles, run directly 

 on the coal outcrops. Such is the location, and such the present and 

 future facilities for transportation. 



The openings now worked near Montevallo are conducted by the 

 Cahawba Coal Mining Co., an association of Illinois capitalists, under 

 the general management of Col. R. M. Moore, formerly Colonel of 

 the 111th Illinois Regiment, and the immediate openings are superin- 

 tended by his Lieutenant-Colonel, J. T. Black, of Salem, 111. One 

 mine is owned in Montgomery, the other leased from some party in 

 the neighborhood. There are numerous other openings near this place, 

 most of them above water levelj and abandoned as soon as water came 

 in. It is probable that the present building development of the 

 Alabama coal and iron mines is due solely to the policy adopted by 

 the Confederate government of exempting from army service all who 

 supplied such products. There was the double inducement of making 

 money and keeping out of the way of bullets. Such a system, how- 

 ever, may not primarily have caused judicious mining, but there were 

 many whose loyalty to the Confederacy did not prevent them from 

 putting their property in excellent shape at the expense of that 

 establishment. At the same time there was much desultory mining ; 

 for instance, the perpendicular thirteen-foot vein was opened, but 

 abandoned as soon as the water came in. Systematic work would 

 have done much to prove the value of this field, as well as for scien- 

 tific investigation. 



The large vein worked by Colonel Moore is from three to four feet 

 thick. It is worked by a drift running horizontally iu a hill about 

 one hundred and fifty feet high. Entering this tunnel about 

 200 feet, in a large chamber we find the engine and boilers — the 

 smoke-stack and ventilation flue run up through the sandstone. The 

 engine pumps the water from the slope workings of the mine and 

 draws up the cars. It is certainly in a singular location, having more 

 than ninety feet of rock and earth over it. The coal from this mine 

 is a free-burning, non-caking coal, and has made a rather poor coke, 

 due, perhaps, to the mode of making. It is said to yield about 8,000 

 cubic feet of gas in the Selma Works, but I w r as disposed to doubt 

 the quantity. It has but little ash, and that of a light fawn color. 

 It is certainly a superior steam coal. The miners are paid ninety 



