672 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



advanced the opinion that the Big Muddy coal of over four feet in thickness 

 could be reached in a shaft at Centralia at a depth varying fr©m 560 to 660 feet. 

 Certain shafts were sunk, but not so deep, and no coal obtained; the parties at 

 work several times stopped work but he continued to encourage them. Their 

 efforts were finally crowned with success, coal was reached at 570 feet and six 

 feet in thickness. 



Gen. Pleasants, in charge of coal mining at Pottsville, Pa., had borings ex- 

 tended to 1,558 to a fourteen-foot seam of coal and 1,909 feet to a seventeen-foot 

 seam. This was done to verify his theory, and the company, I understand, would 

 or did appropriate $100,000 in works. 



In 1874, Prof. G. C. Broadhead published Missouri Geological Report, over 

 700 pages with atlases. This report included certain coal producing counties of 

 northeastern Missouri, with others rich in coal in the southwest. In each County 

 Report approximate calculations were made of probabfe' amount of coal in each 

 township. Bates County was included in this Report. Within a few years there- 

 after the citizens of the county published a small paper giving extracts from the 

 Report when the thickness of coal beds and quantity of coal was named. The 

 paper in each instance gave credit to the Missouri Geological Report with the 

 figures. This paper was circulated very widely. From that time to this the eyes 

 of capitalists and railroad managers have been turned to Bates County. . 



In 1880 the Missouri Pacific Railroad was completed to the Bates County 

 coal fields. The town of Rich Hill was started — now a thriving town of over 

 4,000 inhabitants with its hundreds of coal miners, two railroads and another in 

 contemplation ; zinc works put up also, and carloads of coal being continually 

 carried off. (See statistics in January Review). 



In Michigan the prodigious results of the salt borings in the Saginaw district 

 were the direct consequence of instructions given by the State Geologist before any 

 intelligent work had been done there and after thousands of dollars had been 

 wasted in ineffectual efforts around the edges of the great salt basin where the dilute 

 brine was overflowing. In this instance the State Geologist not only pointed out 

 out the different strata to be pierced ,but also the depth necessary to be bored in 

 order to reach the vast body of salt from which the valueless springs derived their 

 saline qualities. Within one year afterward 4,000 barrels of salt were produced, 

 and within four years the production in the State was 2,678,598 barrels. 



A few years ago Prof. Aughey prepared a monograph on the "Superficial 

 Deposits of Nebraska," a hundred thousand of which were published in pamphlet 

 form for gratituous distribution. These were circulated not only in the United 

 States but also in Europe, and a year or more ago the railroad officials estimated 

 that Prof. Aughey's httle volume had brought a hundred thousand people to> 

 Nebraska. 



