NP, WJ 6/29/1861

From the Wilmington Journal
 
June 29, 1861
 
Deep River Coal
   The Fayetteville Observer says: "We are glad to learn that the Egypt shaft, under the management of Wm McClane, Esq., has been completely refitted, with proper ventilating fixtures, and will be ready to commence mining this day, at the rate of from fifty to two hundred tons a day, according to the demand.
   "A coal dealer from Charleston has gone to the mines, desirous to make arrangements for ten or fifteen thousand tons of coal, to be transported two miles by wagon, thence to this place by the Western Rail Road, and hence by boat to Wilmington, and by the Wilmington & Manchester and Manchester and Northeastern Roads.
   "We hope some means will be devised to extend the rail road further into the coal and iron region, and develop the materials abounding there.
   Our attention has been called to the above with the view of having the matter brought more fully before the public.
   It would appear that the gentleman in question is perfectly satisfied, or at least sufficiently satisfied with the rates for which he can get coal down to Wilmington, but complains of the rates of freight on the Wilmington & Manchester Road to Florence, said to be $3 per ton. This, with the freight from Florence down to Charleston, would amount to a virtual prohibition. Coal is certainly wanted and desired there, and as evidence of this we may refer to the following advertisement inserted in the Charleston papers this week. We clip from the Mercury:
 
Transportation Office S. C. R. R.
Charleston, June 26, 1861
 
   Coal will be transported to Charleston over the South Carolina and connecting Railroads, when offered in quantities not less than the car load, 16,000 pounds, at the following low rates, viz.:
From Atlanta, Geo., per 2,000 pounds $4.00
From Chattanooga, Tenn., per 2,000 pounds $6.00
W. J. Magrath, General Agent
 
   To those who know anything of the distances, we need hardly point out the great difference in the amount per ton per mile as compared with that on the Manchester Road, already referred to. It is proper to remark, however, that these advertised rates are wholly new and experimental, and that the rates on the Manchester road are those got up when coal was only occasionally sent, in comparatively small quantities, like any other up freight. We do not pretend to do more than call attention to the fact that now possibly a new business may be made, and the interests not only of the Road but of the whole section promoted by such a course of encouragement as circumstances will admit of.

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