West of the Alleghany Mountains. 231 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BEDS. 



Coals XII aud XIII of the Ohio section are seen at few 

 localities and are of economical importance nowhere. The 

 former is enormously developed in the hills opposite Wheel- 

 ing, where it is a dry coal, six feet thick, but heavily charged 

 with pyrites. 



The Waynesburg (XI) is commonly known in western 

 Belmont Co., Ohio, as the "jumping six-foot seam" owing 

 to its sudden variations in thickness. In Harrison and Jef- 

 ferson counties, it is worthless, never more than two feet 

 thick, and is seen only near the tops of the highest hills. 

 In western Belmont it is not worked and varies from six 

 inches to nearly six feet in thickness. This change is seen 

 in a cut west from Barnesville, at one end of which it is 

 barely six inches while at the other it shows the following 

 section : 



Coal, 1 ft. ; shale, 4 in. ; coal, 4 in. ; shale, 4 in. ; coal, 

 4 in. ; shale, 2 ft. ; coal, 1 ft. Total, 5 ft. 4 in. 



Seven miles east from Barnesville it is seen in a cut, about 

 one foot thick and parted in the middle by a thin layer of 

 limestone. Near St. Clairsville, in the same county, it is 

 rudely worked and shows three feet of very impure coal, 

 resting almost immediately upon a foot of limestone. Near 

 Bridgeport, opposite Wheeling, it is three feet six inches 

 thick, roofed by six inches of impure black band which is 

 overlaid by two feet of alternating bands of bituminous and 

 ordinary shale. Here the limestone is eighteen inches below 

 the coal. On a run four miles west from Belleair and just south 

 of the railroad, it suddenly thickens out and becomes a con- 

 fused mass of coal and shale not less than fifteen feet thick, 

 and totally worthless. 



Followed into W^est Virginia it is seen on the top of 

 Wheeling Hill, just back of the city. On Wheeling creek 

 it is worked at Honey's Point, ten miles from the city, and 

 proves to be a very good coal varying from two feet four 



