220 Ten Days in Ohio. 



unexpected invasion of winter, early in November, before the corn 

 was sufficiently dry to bear hard freezing without injury to the vital 

 principle. There was also a marked difference in the vegetative pow- 

 ers of corn raised on old cultivated lands, or on new lands just clear- 

 ed ; that from the old lands being ripe two or three weeks before 

 that on the new, when planted on the same day. It is explained by 

 the well known fact that the more succulent and luxuriant growth of 

 the plants on new lands runs up tall and slender, and is therefore less 

 disposed to form seed early, than the growth of soils a little exhaust- 

 ed by cultivation. 



Two miles above Cat's Creek, we passed Big Run, by a ferry, and 

 two miles further on we came to Coal Run, a small branch rising in 

 the adjacent hills on the east side of the river. 



Coal. 



Coal Run takes its name from a stratum of bituminous coal, found at 

 the mouth of the creek, and also in the bed of the Muskingum, extend- 

 ing for a mile or two up and down the river, and entirely across it. 



The coal, lying on a bed of white clay, is about two feet in thick- 

 ness, and very pure. In low water, the coal diggers anchor a boat 

 in the stream, and with crow bars entered in the seams of the coal, 

 pry up large masses, which they break into pieces of a size easily 

 handled, and then load into the boat. It is worth on the spot when 

 dug, about three cents per bushel, and when delivered in Marietta, 

 five cents. At present, most of the coal is dug from a bed, seated 

 about sixteen feet above that in the bed of the river, near the base 

 of the adjacent hills, by means of tunnels run horizontally into the 

 coal deposit. The road here passes through " the narrows" for 

 nearly a mile, with a space barely wide enough for a carriage. It is 

 about forty or fifty feet above the river, and crosses over several of 

 these tunnels, which, starting near the river, run directly under the 

 road into the bowels of the hills. The elevation of the hills is about 

 two hundred feet. There is a thick stratum of sparry limestone, 

 free from organic remains, resting on the coal deposit with thick beds 

 of sandstone above, covered with argillaceous earth, and clothed 

 with a heavy growth of forest trees, principally white and black oak, 

 with sugar tree, amongst the decomposed limestone soil. The de- 

 posit of coal and slate in this bed is about six feet in thickness, di- 

 vided near the upper part by a horizontal bed of slate of eighteen or 

 twenty inches. This makes it rather tedious digging, as the slate has 



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