300 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



THE GEOLOGIC POSITION OF THE COAL BEDS. 



THE CHEROKEE SHALES. 



More than 75 per cent, of all the coal mined in the state comes 

 from the Cherokee shales situated at the base of the Lower Coal 

 Measures. These shales contain many different veins of coal, in fact 

 they are so numerous that were all the lesser ones considered they 

 would probably reach twenty or thirty in number. The veins which 

 are worked to a considerable extent in Cherokee county are only 

 four, while to the north in Crawford county only three have been 

 operated. About 175 feet above the base of the shales is the Colum- 

 bus coal. The vein is variable in thickness, but will average from 12 

 to 15 inches. It lies just under a relatively heavy sandstone which 

 caps the plateau and hills east and southeast of Columbus. The 

 sandstone is cut through in almost every quarter section by one or 

 more little streams or ravines so that the coal is exposed along the 

 brow of the hill in dozens of different places. The coal bed seems 

 not to be uniform in its extent, so that occasionally it is wanting in 

 areas covered by the sandstone. This coal vein was operated in the 

 early days of the settlement of Cherokee county several years before 

 the heavier veins above were discovered. 



Near the middle of the Cherokee shales the heaviest vein of coal 

 known in the state occurs. It is extensively mined along a belt 

 reaching from a few miles southwest of Scammon to beyond the east 

 line of the state by the way of Weir City, Pittsburg, and other prom- 

 inent mining towns. It outcrops to the southeast and dips to the 

 northwest at an average of about 17 feet to the mile. It is usually 

 known as the lower Weir City-Pittsburg coal. Its thickness, which is 

 remarkably uniform, averages fully 40, inches with an occasional 

 maximum thickness of 4 feet or more. It is also the best coal in the 

 state, as will be shown near the close of the chapter. The northwest 

 limit of this heavy coal seam is not fully determined. Deep borings 

 at Girard show that it does not occur there. There is a general 

 local feeling that it has quite narrow limits in a northwestern direc- 

 tion, but there are some indications that it extends much farther to the 

 west and northwest than has usually been supposed. Above the 

 heavy vein at a distance varying from 30 to 60 feet, a second or 

 upper vein is located. It has an average thickness of from 25 to 

 30 inches, and is mined in many places throughout the coal-mining 

 territory. The quality of the coal produced is almost as good as the 

 lower vein. In numerous places in the northwest part of Cherokee 

 county and reaching over into Crawfcrd county a third vein of coal 

 is found ranging from 14 to 20 inches in thickness which is mined 



