59C C. WHITTLESEY ON THE PHYSICAL 



a bed would disappear in the intermediate distance of sixty miles. Another prominent bed 

 of lime rock exists in the northwest part of Jefferson County, crossing Yellow Creek a few 

 miles above its mouth in Columbiana County, which is sometimes called the white limestone 

 being of a lighter color than the blue. It is about three hundred feet above the "big 

 vein " of the Yellow Creek system. 



That portion of the State between Yellow Creek and the Muskingum, although it is rich 

 in coal seams, has been less studied geologically than any other part of it. For the purpose 

 of mapping the strata, the great barren group of sandstone, below the Pittsburg seam, would 

 furnish a good horizon of reference, and when it is traced through Ohio, the position of this 

 important coal seam in this State, or at least the point of its disappearance, may be deter- 

 mined. In a region geologically so irregular, nothing short of connected explorations will fix 

 the identity of strata between distant points. That portion of the Ohio coal-field north of 

 the railway from Coshocton to Steubenville seems to have been an expansion of the carbon- 

 iferous seas, in which the deposits were left by local eddies in the form of very disconnected 

 basins and troughs, between which there are spaces barren of coal. My field-books show 

 instances where the ancient currents of the coal era had made excavations in the original 

 mud of the shaly deposits, afterwards filled in by other materials. The buhrstone beds 

 in this portion of the field are not traceable over long lines, but, like the other strata, are 

 quite local, and exist at various geological levels. In Tuscarawas County, west of New 

 Philadelphia, there is an outcrop a few miles in length. There is another near Alliance, in 

 Stark County, from which, as from the buhr of Muskingum County, the aborigines quarried 

 the rock, for flint arrow and spear heads. Another limited outcrop is seen on the Alleghany 

 River, about twenty miles below Franklin, Pa. 



When the barren sandstone group next below the Pittsburg seam is followed southerly, 

 it is probable it will be found to recross the Ohio River near Marietta, separating the Pitts- 

 burg and Wheeling coal from the Pomeroy. Should this prove to be the case, the upper 

 limestone group of Dr. Hildreth will represent the Wheeling group in diminished thickness, 

 and a seam of coal on the Muskingum below Waterford, the Pittsburg seam. In the profile 

 made by Professor Andrews, along the Marietta and Cincinnati Railway, from the lower coal 

 seam in the north part of Jackson County, nearly east to Marietta, there are eight (8) seams 

 represented, three of which are heavy and extensive. This profile has not yet been carried 

 up to the great Wheeling and Pittsburg bed, with which the profile on the opposite page 

 is connected. There is also a vacant space of about fifty miles between the eastern end of 

 the profile made by Mr. Foster, along the National Road, which terminates at the east line 

 of Muskingum County, and Wheeling. Another profile is very much needed across the 

 intermediate space north of the National Road, and south of the Sandy and Beaver Canal, 

 along the railway from Coshocton to Steubenville, where it would connect with the Pitts- 

 burg seam. 



[That part of the accompanying map, Plate 24, which lies south of the National Road, 

 is compiled from the Ohio Reports of 1838 and 1839.] 



Published March, 1869. 



