GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 325 



or seventy feet, under a roof of fire-clay. This appears to lie between 

 the Dabney and the main bed. 



The fourth bed is not far from the small bed just described, being a 

 little to the north of a line connecting it with the mine now worked. It 

 differs from the others in lying in a vertical position ; and it is not clear 

 where its position is in the series. A shaft was sunk upon the bed some 

 years ago to the depth of fifty feet, and the coal was raised by a horse- 

 whim. The bed was seven feet thick. 



A small blast furnace was built at this place in 1863 for the purpose 

 of working the brown hematite iron ores found scattered about the hills 

 in the vicinity. It ran but a short time, when the enterprise was aban- 

 doned. Though the coal mines were so conveniently near, no attempts 

 were made to use the coal ; but pine- wood charcoal from the mountains 

 was employed as fuel. The iron made was of superior quality, and it is 

 evident from the appearance of the cinder heap that the furnace, not- 

 withstanding its diminutive size, must have worked well. 



Wilson's. — From Marshall's north it is less than a mile over the pla- 

 teau into the next depression, where the large coal-bed, easily traced 

 by the outcrop of the sandstone ledge that overlies it, is again opened 

 and worked. This place is known as Wilson's mine. The bed has been 

 followed down the slope toward the south-southeast about two hundred 

 feet, and the height of the excavation in the coal is from six to seven 

 feet. Probably the whole is not taken out. The coal itself is the same 

 in appearance as that obtained at Marshall's. 



The continuation of the coal-bearing belt toward the north here ap- 

 pears to be interrupted, as no more mines are opened in this direction. 

 The dip of the strata is with the slope of the surface toward the east, -but 

 somewhat steeper, so that the coal beds are carried under and disap- 

 pear. It seems, however, that the dip must change and a sharp uprise 

 to the east take place, followed again by a long gentle slope in the same 

 direction ; for the surface of the country appears to indicate this in the 

 steepness of its short western slopes, and also the reappearance of large 

 coal beds some thirteen miles northeast of the last mine described. 

 These are found in the side of a steep hill that ranges along the east 

 side of Coal Creek, the same stream noticed before as being crossed by 

 the coal-bearing belt near the mountain range ; and which below turns 

 from an eastern to a northerly course. 



Briggs's. — The most northern opening in these beds is that of the 

 Messrs. Briggs. It is on the side of the hill facing the creek and fol- 

 lows the slope of the bed into the hill east-northeast, the inclination not 

 being so steep but one can walk easily down. The length of the head- 

 ing is about five hundred feet, and rooms have been worked to the right 

 and left. No water has yet been encountered in quantity to be trouble- 

 some. The coal-bed is about thirteen feet thick, including in this a seam 

 of slate a foot and three inches thick at three to three and a half feet 

 above the floor. The coal presents a handsome appearance, being of a 

 bright glistening black, and coming out in sound blocks of rectangular 

 fracture. It has been mined for the Denver market, twenty-three miles 

 distant ; and arrangements are now in progress for extending a branch 

 of the Denver Pacific Eailroad to the mine. 



Baker's. — The Baker or Douglass coal-bed is three and a half miles 

 farther up the creek, toward the south, and on the same side of it with 

 the Briggs bed. It lies about two hundred feet lower down than this 

 in the formation, as the extension of the latter is found at this greater 

 elevation near by. The mine was originally opened in the bank of the 

 creek, and this being an inconvenient place to work it, an inclined shaft 



