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IMPORTANT DISCOVERY OF COAL AT CENTRALIA, ILLS. 

 To the Editor. Lasalle, Ills., October 29, 1874. 



Sir :— Although deprived, by unavoidable circumstances, of the pleasure 

 of meeting with you and the Institute, I am to-day placed in a position to 

 communicate to you a fact which is of considerable practical interest. A 

 bed, 6 to 7 feet thick, of good quality of coal (evidently the Belleville- 

 Duquoin vein) has been struck to-day in a shaft sunk at Centralia, on the 

 Illinois Central Railroad, at a depth of 560 feet, 30 miles east and 22 miles 

 north of the nearest coal mines working on the same vein, which is the 

 only vein in this part of the State of more than purely local and very small 

 importance. There is no reason now to doubt that the Illinois and Indiana 

 fields connect continuously from east and west, and not merely at the rim 

 of the basin. From careful detailed surveys of several of the adjoining 

 counties, as Assistant Geologist of Illinois, I had predicted, ten years ago, 

 that if this vein of coal extended thus far, it might be expected at a depth 

 of between 560 and 640 feet. Mr. Worthen, the State Geologist, could not 

 see the strength of my argument, and stated in his report that this vein of 

 coal would be found not much over 300 feet deep. On the strength of his 

 argument the citizens of Centralia sank a shaft, but, not finding the coal 

 at that depth, remembered my prediction, and came to me for advice. 

 Their funds having all been "sunk" in the shaft, they raised an additional 

 amount upon my suggestion, with the above result. Although I have not 

 received particulars, I am satisfied that this stratum is the equivalent of 

 the Belleville and Duquoin seam of bituminous coal, the vein which fur- 

 nishes most of the coal used in St. Louis. Mr. Worthen considers these 

 two veins as distinct, but I have never been able to see it. 



H. Engelmann. 



Theodore Allen, C. E., was elected an Associate Member. 



December 21, 1874. 



W. T. Harris, President, in the chair. 



Fifteen members present. 



The Corresponding Secretary submitted communications and 

 exchanges, and called especial attention to a work by T. Sterry 

 Hunt, entitled "Chemical and Geological Essays." One idea 

 contained in the work struck him forcibly, viz., that the law of 

 water congealing into ice, whereby it becomes lighter, does not 

 hold with regard to many minerals, which in cooling and con- 

 densing from the molten state become heavier. Hence the nucleus 



