A line drawn from the junction of the Scioto River with the Ohio south-west to a point in the southern boundary about thirty miles east of where the Cumberland leaves the State defines the eastern coal-measures of Kentucky. In area it is about a quarter of the State—a region of plateaus, mountains, narrow valleys, cut in all directions by clear, rapid streams, stuffed, one may say, with coals, streaked with iron, abounding in limestone, and covered with superb forests. Independent of other States a most remarkable region, but considered in its relation to the coals and iron ores of West Virginia, western Virginia, and eastern Tennessee, it becomes one of the most important and interesting regions in the Union. Looking to the south-eastern border, I hazard nothing in saying that the country from the Breaks of Sandy down to Big Creek Gap (in the Cumberland Mountain), in Tennessee, is on the eve of an astonishing development—one that will revolutionize eastern Kentucky, and powerfully affect the iron and coal markets of the country. It is a region that appeals as well to the imagination of the traveller as to the capitalist. My personal observation of it extends only to the portion from Cumberland Gap to Big Stone Gap, and the head-waters of the Cumberland between Cumberland Mountain and Pine Mountain, but I saw enough to comprehend why eager purchasers are buying the forests and the mining rights, why great companies, American and English, are planting themselves there and laying the foundations of cities, and why the gigantic railway corporations are straining every nerve to penetrate the mineral and forest heart of the region. A dozen roads, projected and in progress, are pointed towards this centre. It is a race for the prize. The Louisville and Nashville, running through soft-coal fields to Jellico and on to Knoxville, branches from Corbin to Barboursville (an old and thriving town) and to Pineville. From Pineville it is under contract, thirteen miles, to Cumberland Gap. This gap is being tunnelled (work going on at both ends) by an independent company, the tunnel to be open to all roads. The Louisville and Nashville may run up the south side of the Cumberland range to Big Stone Gap, or it may ascend the Cumberland River and its Clover Fork, and pass over to Big Stone Gap that way, or it may do both. A road is building from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap, and from Johnson City to Big Stone Gap. A road is running from Bristol to within twenty miles of Big Stone Gap; another road nears the same place—the extension of the Norfolk and Western—from Pocahontas down the Clinch River. From the north-west many roads are projected to pierce the great deposits of coking and cannel coals, and find or bore a way through the mountain ridges into south-western Virginia. One of these, the Kentucky Union, starting from Lexington (which is becoming a great railroad centre), has reached Clay City, and will soon be open to the Three Forks of the Kentucky River,