The value of this material as used in the manufacture of drain and sewer-pipe, paving blocks, and artificial stone has yet to be tested to any definite extent, but it is evident that, owing to the close proximity of such markets as can be found in the chain of large cities encircling Cumberland, and the ease and cheapness with which this class of low-grade freight can be conveyed over the nominal intervening distance, there is an unusually promising opening in that particular line of manufactures, and one which must soon attract the attention of interested parties to the profit of all concerned.
Glass-Making Material. — -Upon making a careful survey of the advantages of Cumberland it is an unavoidable conclusion that for the manufacture of glass there can be found no locality where are assembled together in greater abundance the varied materials, all adapted to such a purpose, than the city of Cumberland and its immediate vicinity.
Surrounded by vast deposits of sandstone of varied formations, by ample supplies of the finest lime, the cheapest of fuel, the most durable of fire-clay, and the material for making cheap charcoal, combined with a location insuring the greatest convenience in the matters of handling, working, and shipping, and a central position in relation to the different great distributing points, with a climate and social advantages which go far towards giving to the workman a healthy and happy home, it certainly seems that Cumberland is a favored spot, regarding it from an industrial point of view.
The Medina sandstone, which is of the greatest importance in the manufacture of glass, crops out in every mountain gorge, forming walls in some places over five hundred feet in height. It is a stone of an average fine grain, breaks easily under the hammer into sand which is composed of angular crystals, looking more like grains of glass than natural sand. This peculiar angular grain is of the utmost importance, as it leaves a certain space between each particle, by means of which the heat soon permeates the entire mass, causing a certain weight of sand to melt much sooner with a given amount of coal than if lying in finely powdered, pasty lumps in the pot. An analysis of this stone, of which millions of tons are lying along and above the different railroads, gives it more than ninety-eight per cent, of silica, and of sesquioxide of iron only forty-two one-hundredths of one per cent., this being the only real impurity.
The supply of this material is simply unlimited, and is obtainable in such varied localities and under such advantageous circumstances that there can be no question of its being procured at any time and at any quantity at but little above the mere cost of handling.
For the benefit of interested parties, we append a copy of the analysis and letter:
" Laboratory School of Mines,
"Columbia College,
"New York, March 9, 1875.
" Sir, — The sample of Medina limestone submitted to me for examination contains: Silica, 98.35 per cent.; sesquioxide of iron (equivalent to 0.29 per cent, of metallic iron), .42 per cent. Bottle glass, which is dark green or black, contains from 3.8 to 6.2 per cent, of oxide of iron. Plate glass contains from 0.2 per cent, to 1.9 per cent, of oxide of iron. Assuming that the glass to be made of your sandstone will contain 75 per cent, of the sandstone, the glass would contain less than one-third of one per cent, of oxide of iron, which is too little to give it any objectionable color, or practically to color it at all. I am satisfied, therefore, that the sandstone is in every respect well fitted for the manufacture of glass of the best quality.
(Signed) " C. F. Chandler, Ph.D.,
" Professor of Analytical and Applied Chemistry,"
In manufacturing glass the only material needed from abroad in any appreciable quantity would be soda ash and crucible stock, which can be transported to the city at the very lowest rates, as there is but little if any return freight for the cars and boats of the different coal-shippers.
The various glass-works in the West which draw their supplies of the finest qualities of sand from points far eastward can find in this section material which, it is claimed, will equal in most respects the famous Berkshire sand of Massachusetts. Certainly the proprietors of different distant works can find here such combinations of advantages as will compel them to coincide with the declaration of one of the pioneers in the glass trade of America, which was that, in his estimation, " glass could be made in Cumberland at a cheaper rate than elsewhere in the States."
Derivation of Names of Mountains and Streams. — The first white man who penetrated the wilds of the mountain region of Allegany County was an individual named Evart. Tradition says that he was an Englishman by birth, and a man of education who had seen much of civilized life. The Western settlements of the white man had not then penetrated farther into the forest than the Conococheague, and that fierce struggle for the possession of the country was going on between the white and the aborigines which in nearly every portion of our land has been marked by blood and cruelty. Evart, driven to desperation by disappointment in love, penetrated that part of the country which stretches some sixty miles west of the Conococheague, and built a cabin on the top of a mountain some seven miles northeast of the present city of Cumberland. The trail of the Indians, as they traversed the mountainous region lying between the Atlantic and the western waters, passed along the valley of the Potomac and crossed Dan's Mountain, some eight miles south of the spot where Evart built his cabin. There upon the top of a mountain, far from the habitation of civilized man, and even from the haunt of the red man of the forest, this singular individual took up his lonely abode. It is asserted that his disgust for civilized life was caused by the frailty, fickleness, or falsehood of a woman on whom he had placed his hopes of happiness. When these were wrecked he sought the wilderness. Neither the allurements of civilized life, nor the dangers of the forest, traversed only by the savage, were sufficient to deter him. Without expecting or desiring ever to see the face of civilized man, he fixed his habitation far in the wilderness, and on so rugged a spot that even to this day perhaps not a dozen individuals have ever visited the spot where his cabin was built.
Shortly after Gen. Thomas J. McKaig removed to Maryland he heard the story of the residence of " Evart the Englishman" from George Hughes, then some eighty years old, and one of the earlier settlers of this part of Maryland. In order to test the truth of the tradition, Gen. McKaig procured a mountain-guide and went in search of the spot where it was said Evart's cabin had stood. Traversing the side of the mountain now known as " Evart's" or Evitt's Mountain for some distance north of the point where the turnpike leading from Hagerstown to Cumberland crosses Martin's Mountain, Gen. McKaig and his guide left their horses, and with much labor reached the top of the mountain near the point where the stream called " Evart's Creek" breaks through the mountain. Here he found undoubted evidence that the spot where he then stood had been the residence of the hermit. Even then silence covered the mountain, and with the eloquence of Ajax among the dead served to tell the melancholy story of its former occupant. On the top of the mountain, or at least that which seemed the top, was a level piece of ground of about two acres, with good soil, that had been cleared and in cultivation. The mountain gradually rose to the north, for at the brow of the mountain in clear soil was a fine spring of mountain-water. The access to the top was so rugged that cattle seldom, if ever, reached it. The grass had grown up and fallen until it formed a sward as soft as a bed of down. The house or cabin was gone, but the chimney, of rude stone, some ten or twelve feet high, was still standing. There were scattered around some three or four apple-trees, two pear-trees, some sprouts from the peach-trees, and one plum-tree. Over the whole surface of that part which had been cultivated the English strawberry had spread, and was then growing in great profusion. Gen. McKaig brought down with him some of the roots, and had them transplanted in Cumberland, from which has been produced the finest quality of the English strawberry. Here, in this solitary spot, lived one whom neither the thirst for gold, nor the speculative spirit of adventure, nor the maddening zeal of religious enthusiasm had driven from civilization and home and friends, but a romantic disappointment which he had permitted to blight his life. His idea seems to have been to lose his identity and bury his name, but in this he failed, for his name still clings to the mountain on which he resided, and to the stream which