FULTON COUNTY. 101 



been opened by Mr. Johnson, on lands adjoining Piper's, and about the same 

 distance from Canton. This coal varies in thickness from four to five and a 

 half feet, and at all the localities examined in this county, the seam is invaria- 

 bly divided a little below the middle, by a clay parting from one to two inches 

 in thickness. This character alone, will serve to distinguish this seam any where 

 in this county, from either of those below it. This coal is usually overlaid by 

 a hard, black shale, from six inches to two feet in thickness, which comes im- 

 mediately above the coal, and is succeeded by buff, or yellow shaly, or compact 

 limestone, above which comes a heavy bed of sandstone. At some localities, 

 the slate and limestone are wanting, and the sandstone rests directly upon the 

 coal. Where the limestone is present, it contains a great number of minute 

 fossils, resembling grains of wheat, and about the same size. This small fossil 

 is called Fusulina, of which there are two or three species in the Coal Meas- 

 ures of this State, and they may be regarded as the characteristic fossils of this 

 coal. It is also frequently underlaid by a calcareous fire clay, containing a fos- 

 sil coral in great abundance, known as Chsetttcs milleporaceous, which, so far 

 as we know, has not been found in this State below the horizon of this coal, but 

 has also been found in connection with No. 7. There is also a thin layer of 

 limestone above No. 6 coal, that appears to be mainly composed of the remains 

 of minute Foraminifera, and polished sections of the stone exhibit many of 

 these microscopic fossils in an excellent state of preservation. 



Six miles northeast of Canton, on a branch of Copperas creek, near Mr. 

 Kosenbaum's place, this coal has-been worked by tunneling into the base of 

 the hill, on the outcrop of the seam, and the strata intervening between this 

 and the upper seam are well exposed. The distance between these coals at this 

 point is 37 feet, and the intervening strata consist entirely of sandy and 

 argillaceous shales. These two coals are also found together at Powel's coal 

 bank about two miles east of Norris, where No. 6 has been mined for several 

 years to supply the coal demand of the surrounding region. 



Burbridge & Co.'s shaft, one mile west of Farmington, in the valley of one 

 of the branches of Coal creek, reaches coal No. 6 at a depth of twenty-six 

 feet. The coal is four feet and a-half in thickness at this shaft, and similar in 

 quality to that at Piper's mine, near Canton. This seam lies about ninetv feet 

 below the level of the town of Farmington, and coal No. 7 outcrops on the 

 hill side east of Burbridge's shaft, and from thirty-five to forty feet above No. 6. 

 Two miles northeast of Fairview, No. 6 is mined in the bluffs of Coal creek, 

 and is here about four feet and a-half in thickness, with a good roof of black 

 slate, above which there is about twenty feet of massive sandstone. This seam 

 probably underlies some three or four townships, north and east of Canton, 

 and may be reached any where in that region at a depth varying from twenty- 

 five to one hundred feet. 



