The people of Atlanta are pushing their proposed exposition with the same vigor with which they undertook the preliminary organization. The enthusiasm which has marked every step of progress shows how thoroughly in earnest Atlanta is, and gives promise of what may be expected from the exposition. Director-General Palmer is getting his working force into good shape, and reports that from all sections of the country the most hearty and enthusiastic commendations are being received. If carried out on the scope upon which it has been planned, this exposition will be for the South what the World’s Fair was for Chicago and the country at large. It will centre in the South an amount of interest scarcely appreciated now, but which will mean the investment of many millions and in time of many hundreds of millions of dollars. It will also mean a stimulation of the Southward trend of population, and thousands who are thinking of moving South will be determined by the work of the exposition. Everything indicates that the exposition will be on a scale far surpassing anything that has ever before been seen in the South.

Improving the Dismal Swamp Canal.

Preparations are being made by Messrs. Ross & Sanford, of Baltimore, to begin the work of deepening and otherwise enlarging what is known as the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal, which is twenty-two miles long, will be dredged to an average depth of ten feet and widened to sixty feet. This will require the removal of 3,000,000 cubic yards of material. As the capacity of the average dredge is 3000 yards per day, the magnitude of the work can be appreciated. Another important work will be the construction of two main and two secondary locks, the main locks to be 250×40 feet each in the clear. By the lock system the water in the canal level can be raised to a height of thirteen feet. When the work is finished vessels with nine feet draught can pass through the waterway without difficulty. Some of the lumber needed to build the dredges to be employed has already arrived at the scene of operations.

The amount of money to be expended in this work will be fully $1,000,000. This passageway is to be used extensively by lumber barges, fruit and truck steamers and other craft plying between Hampton Roads and North Carolina waters. The improvements will tend to greatly increase the trade between Norfolk, Portsmouth and the tidewater country south of those cities.

Shipping Alabama Coal to Mexico.

The increase in coal business at Pensacola, Fla., is very marked, and an excellent demand is noted for Alabama coal, which thus far has been the only kind sent from that city. The Export Coal Co. reports that it has one contract for 11,000 tons to be delivered at Tampico by March 1, also another for 60,000 tons to be delivered at Vera Cruz and Tampico during 1894. The company also has 30,000 tons to be filled on an order from Galveston by June 1. The exports of Alabama coke are very small as yet, but the indications are that the amount will be greatly increased this year.

Newport News Development.

Everything seems to be contributing to the building up of a great seaport city at Newport News, Va. The business over the fast freight line established by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis and Chesapeake & Ohio from the West to Newport News is being increased by grain shipments from along the Chicago & Northwestern. A through rate has been made on cereals for export to Liverpool, with the result that the new line is not only securing business from Missouri and Kansas and the country traversed by the “Big Four” system, but the territory in Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa for which the Northwestern is an outlet. As the latter has about 3500 miles of lines in these States, the great advantage of having the Northwestern as a feeder is apparent. The people who are forwarding the business have very thoroughly examined the facilities at Newport News and were so pleased with them and the way the business has been handled that they intend making more extensive exports by way of that port.

In this connection it is reported that the Vanderbilts have privately secured a larger interest in the Chesapeake & Ohio and in Big Four than they have ever held, and mean to control absolutely that line from Chicago to the seaboard, with the line of steamers from Newport News.

Southern Coal in Chicago.

President M. H. Smith, of the Louisville & Nashville, has arranged for a reduction of coal rates from Jellico, which will permit of the introduction of Jellico coal into Chicago and Illinois and Michigan points on the same basis as West Virginia coal. This will, it is reported, also include the Middlesborough district. The reduced rate will doubtless result in a great increase in the Western shipments of Kentucky coal, the superior quality of which has created for it a Western demand, despite high freights.

Opening Texas Coal Mines.

The extensive coal deposits near the Rio Grande, in Presidio county, Texas, it is stated, are to be opened and mined on an extensive scale by the San Carlos Coal Co., which controls 53,000 acres of land containing veins of semi-bituminous coal forty-one inches thick in some places. President S. A. Johnston, of the company, in a letter to the Manufacturers’ Record, says that his company has made a contract to sell at least 115,000 tons yearly to the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Northern office of the company is at Pittsburg, Pa.

Another Florida Canal.

Work is about to begin on a canal in Florida which will be of great importance to the lumbering and agricultural interests of the section through which it is to pass. It will extend from a point in Marion county, at the head of Ratcliff’s prairie to Mill Creek swamp. It will be eleven miles long and thirty feet wide at the bottom. The estimated cost of dredging the canal is $75,000. The object of the canal is to reclaim thousands of acres of submerged swamp lands, covered with rich muck from five to ten feet in depth, with a clay bottom, and to provide transportation for pine and cypress timber.

The syndicate interested has purchased 15,000 acres of land along its line. When the improvements are completed they expect to engage largely in the growing of rice and sugar-cane, and hold out inducements to settlers who desire to buy rich lands cheap. D. D. Rogers, at Ocala, is engineer. Among the capitalists interested is Christian Ax, of the firm of G. W. Gail & Ax, Baltimore.

Another Big Enterprise for Norfolk.

Following the announcement that the Chesapeake & Ohio is to enter Norfolk comes the statement that the United States Cotton Warehouse & Loan Co. has asked for legislative authority to build wharves, warehouses, elevators and other buildings; also to construct and operate a terminal railway not over five miles in length. It is also to conduct a general wharfage and warehouse business, with a capital of at least $50,000. The main office is to be in Norfolk or Portsmouth. The corporators are Edward A. Pierson, of New York; John H. Dingee, of Philadelphia; J. Andre Mottu, of Norfolk; J. R. McMurran, of St. Paul, Minn.; Heber Alter, of Philadelphia; James Y. Leigh, of Norfolk; S. Henry Norris, of Philadelphia; William Burrington, of Philadelphia; Herman Niemeyer, of Portsmouth; Fergus Reid, of Norfolk; C. W. Murdaugh, Marcellus Miller, of Berkley; Parke Poindexter, of Berkley; William Goddin, of Philadelphia; William Schmoele, Jr., of Portsmouth; John L. Vaughman, O. P. Heath, S. L. Burroughs and Walter S. Taylor. A number of well-known capitalists appear in the list, and the enterprise evidently means much for Norfolk and vicinity.

The Florence Pump Co., of Florence, Ala., has made a contract with a Philadelphia firm to supply $40,000 worth of pumps.

The water works plant at Yorkville, S. C., has been completed, tested and accepted by the town council. The plant consists of about three miles of mains, a stand pipe seventy feet high on a fifty-foot tower, 120 feet in all, with a capacity of 60,000 gallons. The water is forced into the stand pipe by a pump of 500,000 gallons capacity, and the stream which furnishes the water will furnish (estimated) 150,000 gallons a day. There are 800 feet of hose, and the total cost, including hose, was $16,800.

The Shea Plating and Manufacturing Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, has entered into a contract to remove to Macon, Ga., and the work of transferring the plant has begun.

Railroad communication and the building of ice factories on the west coast of Florida, have resulted in the building up of an important fishing industry, which is growing rapidly. St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Dunedin, Ozona, Sea Side and Tarpon Springs are the principal shipping points, and there was forwarded from these ports for 1893 a total of 7,901 barrels.

The Fort Worth Gazette says of Terrell Texas: “Never before in the history of Terrell and vicinity has there been such demand for homes and tillable grounds. Many persons having large pastures are cutting them up in farms, at least a portion, and if the demand increases the large pastures will have to be given up to farming interests instead of grass pastures. Several thousand acres of new land will be put in cultivation this year in this county.”

For several weeks Messrs. Rand, McNally & Co., printers and publishers, have had an agent in the South prospecting for the most suitable place, in point of business and situation, to establish a distributing house, their main houses being in New York and Chicago. Charlotte, N. C., has finally been fixed upon as the most desirable point.

Newport News had the honor of constructing the first iron and steel merchant vessels built in the South, and the largest ever launched in the United States. El Cid, made famous by being turned into a warship for the Brazilian government, enjoys the distinction of having broken all records in the passage between New York and New Orleans. El Norte, El Rio, and El Sud are not far behind her. Following this distinction comes the docking for repairs of the big American liner New York, which was done February 19. The New York is the largest ship ever docked in America. No other yard on this side the Atlantic could do it. The Newport News dock has but one rival in point of size—the government dock, at Brooklyn—and it is doubtful if that is large enough to admit of her entrance. As soon as the big ship touched the dock a force of 1000 men was put to work upon her.

A new manufacturing enterprise of some importance is about to be inaugurated at Bedford City, Va., by Mr. W. B. Dunn, who has organized the Bedford Manufacturing Co., with himself as secretary. The company’s purpose is to manufacture custom-made clothing to be sold at manufacturers’ prices, making a specialty of trousers, using the product of all leading Southern woolen mills, as well as other fine foreign and domestic goods. It is intended to appoint agents in all towns and cities in the South having 4000 inhabitants or more.

The city hall at Richmond, Va., recently completed at a cost of $1,370,000, is one of the finest municipal buildings in the country.

It is announced that the Boston capitalists who have decided to invest about $300,000 in an office-building in Atlanta, Ga., have secured a site and are to have plans prepared at once. Mr. H. M. Atkinson, who is their Atlanta representative, states that the building is to be fire-proof, ten stories high and will contain all the features of the modern structure for offices.

Hon. Jonathan Norcross, of Atlanta, Ga., is having plans prepared for a five-story building for offices to cost several hundred thousand dollars.