Carres Run CoaL 51 



same species with those found at the Kenawha coal beds, to be de- 

 scribed when speaking of that region. In mining the coal, gunpow- 

 der is extensively used ; a small charge, throwing out large masses of 

 tlie coal, which are readily broken into portable fragments, and taken 

 to the moujh of the mine in a hand cart, where a rail road, conveys* 

 a loaded car to the river, dragging up an empty one at the same 

 time. Large boats, lying at the shore, receive the coal from the 

 cars, and convey it to the. markets below. This coal, being of the 

 black slaty structure, abounds in bituminous matter and burns very 

 freely. Its specific gravity is 1.27. Twenty grains of the coarse 

 powder, decompose one hundred grains of nitrate of potash, which 

 will give to this coal, nearly sixty per cent of charcoal. It must 

 therefore be valuable for the manufacture of coak, an article that 

 must ultimately be brought into use in the numerous furnaces erec- 

 ted along the great iron deposit, a few miles south and west of this 



1 



place. The accompanying sketch (see p. 31 of the wood cuts,) gives 

 a correct view of" Pomeroy's coal beds," as seen from the road, a , 

 few rods above the works. The Ohio river, flow^s at the foot of the 

 rail way, but is not seen in the drawing, being hid by the lofty sugar 

 trees, which cluster along the bank. The country about the coal 

 beds is very broken and hilly. I am indebted to Mr. Sala Bosworth, 

 for this, and several other fine views of scenery, connected with the 

 coal strata. It is a curious fact that the coal deposits, are very thin 

 and rare, near the Ohio river, from the mouth of Pipe creek, fifteen 

 miles below Wheeling to Carr's Rim ; at least none have been dis- 



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covered. As the main coal dips under the Ohio, at both these pla- 

 ces, the inference is, that the coal lies below the surface, arid could 

 be readily reached by a shaft, first ascertaining its distance from the 

 surface, by the operation of boring. 



Topography of the Valley , of the Monongahela. 



This valley occupies a space of about one hundred and eighty 

 miles in length, by sixty or eighty in breadth, and lies between the 

 Alleghany mountains and their collateral ranges on the east, and the 

 Ohio river on the west. Its general direction is north and south, 

 with a rapid declination from its southern borders to its northern ex- 

 tremity. The waters of the Monongahela pursue a course directly 

 opposite to that of the Ohio, arid some of its southern branches take 

 their rise in the most elevated lands, west and north of the Appala- 



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