AND COAL-MEASURES OF IOWA. 107 
THICENESS OF BED. 
Feet. Inches. 
1. White, brown, and yellow eerie : : [ , 12 
2. Shale and imperfect coal, : 1 
3. Argillaceoous bed oti we Ane ‘ 3 16 
4. Coal, . 8 
5. Sandstone, : j ; 5 
6. Fire-clay, ; ; : 16 
7. Main coal seam 24 to 3 
8. Fire-clay, 3 
9. Coal, 18 
10. Slaty clay, : : 
11. Coal, not yet pinclnied : : ine, (2) 
The two upper seams in the above are too thin to be productive. Whether the 
lowest be worth working has not yet been ascertained. 
At the above locality, two drifts have been run into the hillside to the distance 
of sixty yards, and a good deal of coal removed from beds Nos. 7 and 9, for the use 
of the neighbouring town of Farmington. Bed No. 7 is of tolerable quality, fur- 
nishing a slaty, bituminous coal, of a mottled dull and bright fracture on the hori- 
zontal surface; the dull portion displaying distinctly the ligneous fibre, and present- 
ing the aspect of charcoal. This latter character is common to most of the coal- 
beds in the Des Moines country. 
In the eastern drift there is a fault, having a hade of about 45°; the walls of 
which present the semi-polished surface, popularly known among miners as “ slick- 
ensides.” 
About half a mile to the south of the coal mines, where several wells have been 
sunk for the use of a brickyard, there is additional evidence of small, local depres- 
sions, and uplifts, such as appear to have taken place along the whole course of the 
Des Moines River, at short intervals, as far as the coal formation has been traced, 
bringing certain members at one time to the surface, and again depressing them 
beneath the water-courses. At the depth of eighteen to twenty feet, in three of the 
wells, a bed of coal was struck, supposed to correspond to 4 of the section, while in 
two other wells, situated from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards to the 
east, black slate was struck at the depth of eleven feet, with a nine inch-seam of 
coal under it, composed largely of absolute charcoal, with the ligneous fibre even 
more distinctly shown than in the White River coal of Indiana. 
On the opposite side of the Des Moines, near Indian Creek, on Section 34, same 
township and range as the preceding locality, coal has also been struck, just under 
the surface-soil and drift, pitching east of north; though the strata on the other 
side of the ravine dip in a contrary direction. Mr. Babcock, the owner of the 
land, has laid open the bed to the depth of four or five feet. 
Two feet beneath where the coal was first struck, there is a bed of fire-clay, of 
about ten inches in thickness; and beneath this again, a twenty inch-seam of fair 
coal. The parting of fire-clay, and the quality and thickness of coal above and 
