Coal Mines in the vicinity of Richmond, Va. 13 



James River sells for a less price than that on the south side, be- 

 ing considered net as good.* 



Some four or five miles north of these mines, lie those 

 called the Deep Run pits, worked by John Barr, who at present 

 employs some forty hands, and raises some two hundred and fifty 

 thousand bushels of coal ; he uses steam power. This coal is 

 of fair quality, as is also that from Burton's pits, now mined 

 by Grubs & Co., who will probably raise about the same quan- 

 tity as Barr, and employ as many hands. The coal from these 

 mines is transported to Richmond by the Fredericksburg and 

 Richmond Railroad Company, a branch of their road having 

 been extended to the pits. The charge for coal on this road is 

 four cents per bushel from the mines to Richmond. The charge 

 for boating coal down the James River canal, including tolls, is 

 about three cents from the mines, — that on coal passing the coal 

 railroad in Chesterfield from the mines, to tide water, is five and 

 a half cents: — for taking it from this road, at its junction with 

 the Petersburg and Richmond railroad, two cents per bushel 

 to Richmond, — to Petersburg four cents, including yardage at 

 either place ; and coal going by this road, to either Petersburg or 

 Richmond, is entitled to half a cent per bushel deduction from 

 the main coal road charge. The charge for transporting from the 

 mines on the south side of Chesterfield County to Petersburg, is 

 about eleven cents per bushel, by waggons. It is in contempla- 

 tion to branch, at some future day, from the main coal road to 

 Warwick, about five miles below the present shipping yards at 

 Manchester, where vessels of large size can load with coal with 

 great facility ; a bar just above that place preventing large 

 vessels from going up to Manchester or Richmond. The charge 

 for transporting coal on the principal coal railroad is unusually 

 high, but will soon be reduced. It being the first road of the 

 kind in Virginia, it was deemed prudent to make the transporta- 

 tion high, a dividend of six per cent, per annum, payable semi- 

 annually being authorized in the charter; the surplus raised from 

 the five and a half cents per bushel, being pledged to the refund- 

 ing of the capital subscribed ; this application has been faithfully 



* There is found in connection with the coal at Bailee's and Burfoot's pits in 

 Chesterfield, and on the north side of James river at the mines generally, a sub- 

 stance formerly called dead coal, recently called natural coke, that has lately been 

 used and very much approved as grate fuel. 



