220 _ Ten Days in Ohio. 
unexpected inyasion of winter, early in November, ies the corn 
was sufficiently dry to bear hard freezing without injury to the vital 
principle. There was also a marked difference in the vegetative pow- 
ers of corn raised on old cultivated lands, or on new lands just clear- 
ed; that from the old lands being ripe two or three weeks before 
that on the new, when planted on the same day. It is explained by 
the well known fact that the more succulent and luxuriant growth of 
the plants on new lands runs uf tall and slender, and is therefore less 
disposed to form seed early, than the growth of soils a little exhaust- 
ed by cultivation. 
Two miles above Cat’s Creek, we passed Big Run, by a ferry, and 
two miles further on we came to Coal Run, a small branch rising in 
the adjacent hills on the east side of the river. = 
Coal. 
Coal Run takes its name from a stratum of bituminous coal, found at 
the mouth of the creek, and also in the bed of the Muskingum, extend- 
ing for a mile or two up and down the river, and entirely across it. 
The coal, lying on a bed of white clay, is about two feet in thick- 
ness, and very pure. In low water, the coal diggers anchor a boat 
in the stream, and with crow bars entered in the seams of the coal, 
pry up large masses, which they break into pieces of a size easily 
handled, and then load into the boat. It is worth on the spot when 
dug, about three cents per bushel, and when delivered in Marietta, 
five cents. At present, most of the coal is dug from a bed, seated 
about sixteen feet above that in the bed of the river, near the base 
of the adjacent hills, by means of tunnels run horizontally into the 
coal deposit. The road here passes through “the narrows” for 
nearly a mile, with a space barely wide enough fora carriage. It is 
about forty or fifty feet above the river, and crosses over several of 
these tunnels, which, starting near the river, run directly under the 
road into the bowels of the hills. The elevation of the hills is about 
two hundred feet. ‘There isa thick stratum of sparry limestone, 
free from organic remains, resting on the coal deposit with thick beds 
of sandstone above, covered with argillaceous earth, and clothed 
with a heavy growth of forest trees, principally white and black oak, 
with sugar tree, amongst the decomposed limestone soil. ‘The de- 
posit of coal and slate in this bed is about six feet in thickness, di- 
vided near the upper part by a horizontal bed of slate of eighteen or 
twenty inches. ane makes it rather tedious digging, as the slate has 
