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MEXICAN GULF COAST ILLUSTRATED.
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be obtained. We are also nearer St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Kansas City and all the great trade centers of the West than any other ocean or gulf port.”
It is in place here to reproduce a page bearing on this point from a bright pamphlet issued not long since by the Commercial Club:
ALABAMA.
The country makes the city. The wealth of the interior renders possible the great trading, commercial center through which its products seek sale, exchange and delivery.
Added to the thousands of square miles of central agricultural wealth (see large circle on map-) that must seek the markets of the world, the State of Alabama alone furnishes resources enough to compel the building of a great coast metropolis: while a few miles to the northwest the inexhaustible pine regions of Mississippi lie awaiting development. Our coal area alone amounts to 12,000 square miles; more than that of Great Britain, the greatest coal producing country in the world. It exceeds by 2,000 square miles the entire area of the State of Maryland. Our output of coal in 1890 will approximate 5,000,000 for coal and coke.
The iron output in 1880 was 62,336 chamber of commerce and cotton exchange, tons: in 1889 it was 890.442, while the present year will see at least an output of 1,400.000 tons. Mr. Tate, the State Commissioner	for	the	industrial	resources	of	Alabama, reports that a ridge of iron of an
average thickness	of	15 feet	runs	parallel	to one of the principal railroad lines for a
distance of 150 miles. In other parts of the State are immense deposits of red Hematite and Black Band ore, inexhaustible in quantity and of inestimable value. Near by are found abundance of marble, flag, slate, limestone and fine Are clay. ‘The late discovery of petroleum opens up a boundless field for new enterprises and profit.
Her agricultural resources are abundant. Cotton culture grows yearly in extent and value. The yield for 1890 was 1,000.000 bales. The corn product was 26,000,000 bushels, while the total value of her agricultural products was $93,000,000.
Every sort of food culture, from vegetables and fruits to cereals and live stock, is developing new sources of wealth but lately supposed possible.	:
To her timber area of 15! million acres (or 47 per cent, of the area of the-"State) add the vast and unrivaled timber belt of Southern Mississippi, and something like an idea may be reached of the lumber development necessary here. The vAlue of her lumber product for 1890 is over 10i million dollars.	-	■	-
Chief among her valuable forests, in addition to the yellow pine, which is by far the largest, are oak. white oak. poplar, cedar, hickory, cottonwood, mulberry, elm, cypress, ash, tupelo gum and juniper—all accessible, both by rail and water ways:	.	.
In the same work, other reasonable claims are made for this fortuitously located city, so far as conditions intimately connected with growth and prosperity are concerned :	'