51 



^^56] Pomeroy, Ohio. 



diverge at intervals of 36 feet and soon expand into chambers, whose 

 tight IS only 5 feet,-little more than the thickness of the coal stra- 

 tum. The character of these chambers is the same everywhere, viz.— 

 the floor is of fire-clay, which underlies the coal ; the walls 'of the 

 black shining mineral carbon itself, and the roof of argillaceous 

 shale, filled with fossils and impressions. But to these remains of a 

 buried world, we soon turned our attention. In better presevation 

 than any heretofore seen by us, and more abundant, these remains 

 everywhere frescoed and enlivened the rock over us, crossin- and re- 

 crossing, trunks and branches intermingled. It was a glorious sio-ht 

 for the geologist! Together with the common coal plants, we here 

 obtained some of the rarer sort and some altogether strange, about 

 which, after their arrival we hope to speak more particularly. 



It was delightful to see with what zeal the sturdy Welshmen who 

 accompanied us, pointed out the curiosities of their domain, and with 

 what force they applied the pick to bring down from the vaulted roof 

 the specimens which we selected. Billy also illustrated the modus 

 operandi of coal digging, which is thus :— bending low, the miner 

 picks away a thin layer of coal at the bottom of the strata as far un- 

 der as he can reach, at last lying flat upon his side. When thus un- 

 dermined, he drills in the uppermost layer of the mass, and a chai-e 

 of powder brings down usually one, sometimes three or four ca^'r- 

 loads at a single blast. For each car-load, (which is 100 bushels ) 

 the miner receives S2.00,-his average earning per day. The c^reater 

 number of these miners are Welsh, an honest, hardy race, but^orly 

 educated. The whole amount of coal annually raised in Pomeroy 

 and vicinity can not be less, we think, than 1 5,000,000 or 20,000,000 

 bushels We left the Syracuse Mine, rich in collections of fossils 

 and well pleased with our visit. ' 



' BORING FOR SALT. 



• f//7'V^ '^""' '^°° ^''' ^''»""'« '=°='' «t P«meroy lies a 

 rich bed of salt. This being about 60 miles only from the salt mines 



. rr ^', ""l '* P'"'''''''' *''^' " '^ " continuance of the same 

 vast bed. The history of the discovery of this bed, in Ohio is in- 



terestina;. ' 



In the year 1851, there appeared at Pomeroy an old man from 

 Virginia by name, James C. Blunden. Without consultino- any of 

 his neighbors, he set to work erecting a rude shed near a lii^tle run 

 just where the waters fell into the Ohio. Under the cover of this he' 



