392 THICKNESS OF THE MISSOURI COAL MEASURES. 



THICKNESS OF THE MISSOURI COAL MEASURES. 

 BY TROF. G. C. BROADIIEAD. 



In jx volume published by its author, S, A. Miller, in Cincinnati, 1877, wo 

 find the following table of thickness of coal formation in various fields : 



Nova Scotia 14,570 feet. 



Pennsylvania 8,000 " 



Tennessee 2,500 " 



Ohio 2,000 " 



Illinois 1,200 " 



Missouri 640 " 



Kansas 2,000 " 



Nebraska greater than last. 

 It is a great pity that Mr. Miller, in making up his figures, did not coii- 

 feult the latest authority. If he had written to me it would certainly have 

 aflforded mc ver}' great j^leasure to have made out a careful statement tor 

 his use. Under the circumstances M^e feel that justice has not been done to 

 our State. Here in Missouri we know his figures to be wrong. Prof 

 Swallow, in his geological rcj^ort of Missouri for 1865, from preliminary 

 examinations, makes our coal measures 640 feet thick. This is where Mr. 

 Miller obtains his figures. Since then, Swallow, myself and others have 

 made more extended and careful investigations, and found our measures to be 

 much thicker. 



In such a useful work as that of Mr. Miller's, we regret very much that 

 he has not the later and more correct figures; for these appear compara- 

 tive with those of other districts, and may bo read afar off and regarded 

 as authority. 



In 1873 Prof Swallow, with Campbell's map of Missouri, published a 

 later geological sketch of Missouri, in which ho says: 



•'We have observed about 2,000 feet of coal measures in Missouri. "''- 

 During the year 1859, 1860 and 1861, whilst acting as assistant on the 

 first geological survey of Missouri, much of my time was occupied in ex- 

 aminations of the coal measures, j^articularly the Upper measure of Mis- 

 souri. From notes then taken I prepared a careful section of the coal meas- 

 ures, and found the Upper measures to be 1,284 feet thick. At the same 

 time I obtained from other observers of Missouri geology data from which 

 I calculated the thickness of the Middle Coal Measures in North Missouri 

 to be 300 feet and the LoAver measures 500 feet, or a total of coal meas- 

 ures in Missouri of a little over 2,000 foot thickness. The result of these 

 notes was the publication by myself, in 1865, of an extended paper, with a 

 complete section on the Coal Measures in the transactions of the St. Louis 

 Academ}' of Sciences. 



*Dana's Manual of Geology, 1874, gives 2,000 I'eut. 



