Calculated calorific power equal to 8,283 heat units.

These examples show a fair average quality of the block coal used in the blast furnaces of Indiana for making Bessemer pig. The quality is alike good, both in the northern and southern parts of the field. Nine blast furnaces in Indiana, and others at Carondelet, near St. Louis, are using the raw block coal for smelting iron ores, and it gives universal satisfaction.

The Brazi! blast furnace is sixty-one feet high, fourteen feet across the boshes, and has a closed top. It is using the Missouri specular hematite and red hematite iron ores. With three parts of the former and one part of the latter, the make is forty tons of two thousand two hundred and sixty-eight pounds per day, and with equal parts of each the make is thirty-five to thirty-six tons per day. Four thousand pounds of block coal are used to the ton The Missouri ores now cost, on an average, twelve dollars per ton at the furnace, being an advance over the year 1874 of more than three dollars per ton. One and a half tons of the specular ore will produce a ton of pig iron; of the red hematite it requires a little more than this quantity to make a ton of pig.

of iron.

This certainly speaks highly for the block coal, as well as of the superior advantages offered in Indiana for the manufacture of iron and Bessemer steel rails. The cost of labor to make a ton of pig iron at the furnace in Indiana is about three dollars and fifty cents.

The great Indiana coal field is less than one hundred and fifty miles, by railroad, from Chicago, Illinois, or Michigan City, in this state, from which ports the Lake Superior specular and red hematite ores are landed from vessels that are able to run in a direct course from the ore banks. Lake Superior ore is similar in quality to that from the Iron Mountain in Missouri, and is as well adapted for making Bessemer pig. From the Iron Mountain to the block coal field, the distance is two hundred and sixty miles by railroad. There are five railroads running from the coal field to St. Louis, and three to Chicago, and two to Michigan City.

Any careful thinking business man can easily observe the advantages of this immense coal field to the future prosperity of Indiana. From it untold wealth will flow into private and public treasuries. To-day it lies comparatively dormant, awaiting only

the combined efforts of capital and labor to make it the centre of activity and the fountain of material prosperity.

But we must not forget the cannel coal. One of the finest seams of this coal to be found in the country is to be seen in Daviess county, Indiana. Here we have a coal five feet thick, of which the upper three and a half feet is cannel, and the lower one and a half feet is a beautiful jet black caking coal. The two qualities are united, and show no intervening clay or shale, so that in mining, fragments of the caking coal are often found adhering to the cannel. There is no gradual change from one to the other, or blending of the varieties where united, but the change is sudden and the character of the cannel coal is homogeneous from top to bottom.

The cannel coal makes a delightful fire in open grates, and does not pop and throw off scales into the room, as is usually the case with this variety of coal. The following is Prof. Cox's analysis of this coal: Specific gravity, 1,229; one cubic foot weighs 76.87 lbs.

From the above analysis it will be seen that this coal is admirably adapted to the manufacture of illuminating gas, both from the quantity it yields and its high illuminating power. One ton of two thousand pounds of this cannel coal yields ten thousand, four hundred feet of gas, while the best Youghiogheny coal used at the Indianapolis gas works, yields but eight thousand, six hundred and eighty cubic feet. This gas has an illuminating power of 25.2 candles, while the Youghiogheny coal gas has an illuminating power of seventeen candles.

Cannel coal is also found in great abundance in Perry, Greene, Parke and Fountain counties, where its commercial value has already been attested.

There are numerous deposits of bog iron ore in the northern part of the state, and clay iron stones and impure carbonates and brown oxides are found scattered over the vicinity of the coal fields. At some localities the beds are quite thick, and of considerable commercial value. Investigation is already showing that Indiana contains valuable ore beds, that will, at no distant day, contribute largely to her importance.

Indiana also contains immense and inexhaustible quantities of building stone, sufficient for all future purposes, of the very best quality. Numerous quarries are already open and in successful operation. There is an abundance of excellent lime in the state. This is gaining a wide reputation and largely adding to the state

commerce.

The climate is mild as a general rule, but liable to sudden and severe changes. The summers are warm, but the winters, though severe, are short, and except in the most northern counties deep

snows are not ùsual.

The soil of Indiana is uniformly very good. Corn is the great staple of the state; many farmers have become wealthy in raising it. It is easily cultivated, and almost every farmer has from forty to one hundred and fifty acres. Two persons can prepare the ground, plant and attend to and gather from forty to fifty acres, and the product is generally from thirty to seventy bushels an acre, averaging, perhaps, forty or forty-five. Good land, with the proper preparation and care, will, in a good season, produce from seventy to ninety bushels to the acre. Corn, in former days, say from 1840 to 1850, usually sold at from ten to thirty cents a bushel. Millions and millions of bushels have been used at the former price to fatten hogs in the interior; but in this respect things have undergone a change-a change in favor of the farmer. The cultivation of corn is admirably adapted to the soil and climate of the state, and to the customs of the farmers. The soil is very rich, loamy, and with proper cultivation the corn does not often suffer either from cold, rains or drouth.

The commercial and manufacturing interests of Indiana have

not been neglected, nor are they lagging. Commerce in the production of the soil, for many years absorbed the attention of traders and speculators; but no sooner had the prosperity of trade created a demand for a general development of the agricultural resources of the state, than a special interest was directed to manufacturing. This was manifested as early as 1840, and, from that year down to the present, a general prosperity has attended almost every manufacturing establishment in the state. It is said that the largest carriage factory in the whole world, to-day, is located in the state of Indiana, at the flourishing city of South Bend. This is the greatest evidence of the enterprise of Indiana manufactures, when taken in consideration with the celebrated carriage factories of Connecticut, many of which have supplied, to a great extent, the markets of the old world. lowing are some statistical observations.

Manufacturing Statistics.

Fol

CHAPTER II.

SOIL AND SURFACE.
(continued.)

Topography-Minerals - Climate-Soil and Productions.

MICHIGAN.

THE STATE of Michigan has an area of 56,451 square miles, and is situated between 41° 40′ and 47° 30' N. latitude, and 82° 12' and 90° 30′ W. longitude. It is bounded on the north by Canada and lake Superior; on the east by the river Ste. Marie, lake Huron, the lake and river St. Clair, the Detroit river and lake Erie, which separate it from Canada, on the south by Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin, and on the west by Wisconsin and lake Michigan.

Lakes Michigan and Huron, and the Straits of Mackinaw, divide the state into two unequal peninsulas. The northern peninsula is about 320 miles long from southeast to northwest, with an extreme width of 130 miles. The southern peninsula is about 283 miles long, from north to south, and 210 miles wide in its broadest part. "The southern peninsula of Michigan, so interesting in its agricultural and economical aspects, is rather tame in its topographical features, as there is no considerable elevation (compared with the country immediately around it) within its whole extent, though the ridge which divides the waters flowing into lakes Huron and Erie from those flowing into lake Michigan, is 300 feet above the level of the lakes, and about 1,000 feet above the sea. The country, however, may be generally characterized as a vast undulating plain, seldom becoming rough or broken. There are occasional conical elevations of from 150 to 200 feet in height, but generally much less. The shores of lake Huron are often steep, forming bluffs; while those of lake Michigan are coasted by shifting sandhills of from 100 to 200 feet in height. In the southern part are those natural parks, thinly scattered over with