and on to Jackson, in Breathitt County. These valley and transridge roads will bring within short hauling distance of each other as great a variety of iron ores of high and low grade, and of coals, coking and other, as can be found anywhere—according to the official reports, greater than anywhere else within the same radius. As an item it may be mentioned that the rich, pure, magnetic iron ore used in the manufacture of Bessemer steel, found in East Tennessee and North Carolina, and developed in greatest abundance at Cranberry Forge, is within one hundred miles of the superior Kentucky coking coal. This contiguity (a contiguity of coke, ore, and limestone) in this region points to the manufacture of Bessemer steel here at less cost than it is now elsewhere made. It is unnecessary that I should go into details as to the ore and coal deposits of this region: the official reports are accessible. It may be said, however, that the reports of the Geological Survey as to both coal and iron have been recently perfectly confirmed by the digging of experts. Aside from the coal-measures below the sandstone, there have been found above the sandstone, north of Pine Mountain, 1650 feet of coal-measures, containing nine beds of coal of workable thickness, and between Pine and Cumberland mountains there is a greater thickness of coal-measures, containing twelve or more workable beds. Some of these are coking coals of great excellence. Cannel-coals are found in sixteen of the counties in the eastern coal-fields. Two of them at least are of unexampled richness and purity. The value of a cannel-coal is determined by its volatile combustible matter. By this test some of the Kentucky cannel-coal excels the most celebrated coals of Great Britain. An analysis of a cannel-coal in Breathitt County gives 66.28 of volatile combustible matter; the highest in Great Britain is the Boghead, Scotland, 51.60 per cent. This beautiful cannel-coal has been brought out in small quantities via the Kentucky River; it will have a market all over the country when the railways reach it. The first coal identified as coking was named the Elkhorn, from the stream where it was found in Pike County. A thick bed of it has been traced over an area of 1600 square miles, covering several counties, but attaining its greatest thickness in Letcher, Pike, and Harlan. This discovery of coking coal adds greatly to the value of the iron ores in north-eastern Kentucky, and in the Red and Kentucky valleys, and also of the great deposits of ore on the south-east boundary, along the western base of the Cumberland, along the slope of Powell’s Mountain, and also along Wallin’s Ridge, three parallel lines, convenient to the coking coal in Kentucky. This is the Clinton or red fossil ore, stratified, having from 45 to 54 per cent, of metallic iron. Recently has been found on the north side of Pine Mountain in Kentucky, a third deposit of rich “brown” ore, averaging 52 per cent, of metallic iron.