6Q ' Coal Deposits — Monongahela River. 



of the upper deposits were removed by debacles and the gradual 

 washing away of the surface, before the rivers were settled into their 

 present channels. This is evidently the fact in many other places ; 

 beds of very considerable thickness, which now are found in place 

 at the heads of streams, are washed away and gone before they 

 reach the lower portion of the valley at their months. No. 3. does 

 not pursue a level hne, as is represented for convenience in the illus- 

 tration, but is undulating, in its course ; the estimates of its height 

 above the river being only approximations below Greensboro' ; but 

 above that spot they are actual measurements. Below Brownsville, 

 the deposit No. 3. dips nearly into the bed of the river, but rises 

 a^ain, reo-ularlv, fvs we travel down stream, until at Pittsburgh it is at 

 an elevation of three hundred feet. Mr. Elliot says, " in tracing 

 out No. 3, and following it up the Monongahela, as well as the 

 Yourrhioo-eny, I can be in no doubt, as to the correctness of the 

 statements, as I have many times, while travelling over the coun- 

 try, traced it from hill to hill, up both these rivers. A person 

 sailing up the river can easily perceive as he ascends, that the 

 coal banks are becoming nearer the water's edge at every hill he 

 passes, until at Greensboro' and Morgantown, they are within a 

 short distance of the water : as you retire from the river and fol- 

 low out the creeks, you find this stratum on their shelving banks, 

 and sometimes forming the beds of the runs ; and when you reach 

 their heads it has sunk beneath the surface too far to be reach- 

 ed at all, except by shafts. Thus about Washington, Pennsylvania, 

 there is but little coal to be found in the face of the hills. This 

 stratum shows itself again west of Pittsburgh on the Steubenville 

 road. It also appears north of the Alleghany river opposite to 

 Pittsburgh, at an elevation fully equal to, if not greater than its 

 height in "Coal hill." But the stratum north of Pittsburgh is not 

 to be found on that side of the river any farther west, than about 

 two miles north of Alleghany town, where the coal is somewhat in- 

 ferior in quality, being stained with streaks of iron rust and it is rather 

 brittle ; yet it burns well, leaving (ew cinders, but it is not so durable 

 as that found either north, east, or south. I doubt whether this stra- 

 tum is the same with that which appears about Wheeling, Wells- 

 burgh and Steubenville, as it probably runs out a few miles west of 

 Pittsburgh, and farther down the river No. 4. makes its appearance. 

 But of this I am uncertain, for I have not examined the country with 

 sufficient accuracy. No. 3. can also be traced along the Pennsyl- 

 vania canal, dipping nearer to the water as you ascend, until you 



