GRUNDT COUNTY. 203 



the Waupecan bed is nearly exhausted, but other portions of the seam will pro- 

 bably be found farther southward, if borings or shafts should be sunk. The 

 Mazon seam is, apparently, the equivalent of a seam which, on the eastern side 

 of the coal-field, in the Wabash valley, is usually too thin to work, except at a 

 single point, where it reaches twenty-two inches. Still, as it lies near the sur- 

 face, and is reputed to be good fuel, it will probably be mined, to some extent, 

 as population increases in that part of the county. 



The outcrops are not sufficient to give any exact data as to the dips, but I 

 see no reason to believe that the main seam lies at a greater depth than two 

 hundred and fifty feet in any part of the county, and I doubt whether it is any 

 where so deep as that. Whenever, therefore, any portion of the southern part 

 of the county becomes so thickly settled as to create any considerable demand 

 for coal, it can be obtained on the spot without much difficulty. This seam is 

 of pretty constant thickness, at every point where it has been opened, and the 

 miner can rely upon finding a paying thickness of coal at almost any point in 

 this part of the county, even if he sink his shaft without the usual preliminary 

 boring. At many points, also, one or more of the upper seams would be found 

 much nearer the surface, with from two to nine feet of coal. 



In the openings of this county, as elsewhere, the miner is often troubled with 

 "faults" and "rolls," which interrupt the regularity and even the continuity 

 of the seam. Upon the outer edge of the field, near Morris and to the east- 

 ward, the dip of the seam is very variable and irregular, which greatly inter- 

 feres with the drainage of the mines in many cases. Much of this seems to 

 have resulted from the irregularity of the denuded surface of the Silurian rocks 

 upon which the coal was deposited; but, in one or two cases, I have been led 

 to consider the contortions as the result of the removal of the subjacent lime- 

 stone by solution in subterranean streams after the deposition of the coal. This 

 is the only solution which I can devise for the reported condition of the seam, 

 in a shaft a short distance east of the Jugtown pottery. In this neighborhood, 

 the seam is generally about twenty feet below the surface ; but, in the shaft 

 referred to, it was found forty feet down, and after yielding about three hun- 

 dred bushels, the coal ceased abruptly, on all sides. 



So far as known, all the coal mined in the county contains more or less pyrite 

 " sulphur," of the miners and streaks of calcite ; but this is so variable, even 

 in neighboring portions of the same mine, that it would be useless to attempt 

 to discriminate between the products of the different shafts. " Stripped " coal 

 is always inferior to that from a shaft of considerable depth, from its greater 

 exposure to atmospheric and aqueous influences. As a whole, the product of 

 the main seam is a fine steam and grate coal, and is largely shipped to the Chi- 

 cago market, the distance being only sixty-two miles. The Waupecan coal ; not 

 now mined, is said to have made much less " clinker" than the lower seam, but 



