PIKE COUNTY. 33 



Huntley's new bank, on the northwest quarter of section 10, town 4 south, 

 range 5 west. The coal is here about six feet thick, with a parting of clay shale 

 in the middle, about two inches in thickness. The coal in the upper part of 

 this seam is rather soft, and contains considerable bisulphuret of iron. The low- 

 er division affords a harder and better coal, and rests upon a gray fire clay, two 

 feet or more in thickness. Two or three hundred yards northeast of this open- 

 ing, a coal scam outcrops at about the same level with this, which is only about 

 eighteen inches in thickness, and is overlaid by a blue clay shale, containing 

 large septaria. This clay shale is apparently quite similar to that which forms 

 the roof at Huntley's mine, and it is probable that the greatly increased thick- 

 ness of the coal at the point where it is now worked, is due to some local cause, 

 and perhaps to the meeting of two seams, which are only separated by the part- 

 ing of clay shale, coming together in a pocket or depression in the limestone. 

 The coal here abuts directly upon the Keokuk limestone, which outcrops within 

 a few feet of the coal, and in the bed and bluffs of the creek below it. It is 

 not probable that this thickness of coal strata will be found extending over any 

 considerable area of surface, as the cause which has produced it is most proba- 

 bly entirely local, for no other outcrop of coal is known, either in this or the 

 adjoining counties, where the seams range above two feet, or thirty inches at most, 

 in thickness. Three miles east of Barry, coal has been dug, on a small branch 

 south of the Philadelphia road, and a mile further south, on the north fork of 

 the creek which intersects the river bluffs near New Canton, there is a ble clay 

 shale, from twenty-five to thirty feet thick, exposed along the creek, which con- 

 tains septaria and tuten-mergel, and closely resembles the shale over the coal at 

 Huntley's mine. From this point, the western boundary of the Coal Measures 

 trends southeastwardly to Houseworth's coal bank, two miles and a-half north- 

 west of Pittsfield. This mine is on the northeast quarter of section 16, town 5 

 south, range 4 west, coal about eighteen inches thick, overlaid by about three 

 feet of dark blue shale passing upward into sandy shale, of which about ten 

 feet in thickness was seen above the coal. The coal seam is variable in its thick- 

 ness here, and ranges from sixteen to twenty-two inches, but at Mr. Harshman's 

 place, a mile north, it is about two feet thick. An analysis of Houseworth's 

 coal, by Mr. Henry Pratten, as reported in Norwood's "Analysis of Illinois 

 Coals," gave the following result : 



Specific gravity 1.2203 



Loss in coking 49.5 



Total weight of coke 50.5 



100.00 



Analysis : Moisture 5.0 



Volatile matters 44.5 



Carbon in coke. 45.5 



Ashes (white) 5.0 



100.00 



Carbon-hi coal 53.2 



5 



