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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."

The raw bullion of nature; what we call
"moral" value not yet stamped on it. But in a thousand miles the
immense material values will show twenty or fifty Californias;
that a good ciphering head will make one where he is. Thus at
Pittsburg, on the Ohio, the "Iron" City, whither, from want of
railroads, few Yankees have penetrated, every acre of land has
three or four bottoms; first of rich soil; then nine feet of
bituminous coal; a little lower, fourteen feet of coal; then
iron, or salt; salt springs, with a valuable oil called
petroleum floating on their surface. Yet this acre sells for the
price of any tillage acre in Massachusetts; and, in a year, the
railroads will reach it, east and west.--I came home by the great
Northern Lakes and Niagara.
No books, a few lectures, each winter, I write and read. In the
spring, the abomination of our Fugitive Slave Bill drove me to
some writing and speech-making, without hope of effect, but to
clear my own skirts. I am sorry I did not print whilst it was
yet time. I am now told that the time will come again, more's
the pity.


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