251 



Thus the thickness of these coal-bearing strata, exchisive of the beds 

 above the uppermost coal, is 1,000 feet. 



Coal A, at a slight opening in Macomber's Gulch, is quite friable, 

 though it will undoubtedly present a better appearance when worked 

 beyond the influence of the weather. This is doubtless the coal pene- 

 trated by Mr. Teller, of Central City, in a boring made a few years ago 

 near the railroad-company's mine, and which is reported there to have 

 been of superior quality. Mr. Teller was, however, unable to furnish an 

 accurate record of this boring. 



Coal B is the one which has been worked for several years on Coal 

 Creek by the Denver and Eio Grande Railroad Company", and its quality 

 has been tested by pretty extensive use. This is the coal the analysis 

 of which as from Canyon City is given in your report for 1873, as also 

 in Raymond's Report on Mineral Resources, dated 1873, from which 

 analysis its calorific power is shown to be superior to that of any other 

 western lignitic coal. It endures exposure to the atmosphere as well 

 as the most of the bituminous coals of Ohio, and burns freely on the 

 grate-bars of a locomotive, with a strong heat and without crumbling. 

 I am told that it is a favorite coal for domestic use in J3enver. 



Coals C and D will, I think, when worked, prove to be of as good 

 quality as Coal B. At their outcroppings, in the ravine of Coal Creek, 

 they present vertical faces, with but little tendency to crumble, even 

 from this long-continued exi:)osure to the weather. The shale which 

 separates them at the outcrop may very possibly thin out when worked 

 to such a degree as to make it ijracticable to work the two seams to- 

 gether. 



Coal E, although thin, is of good quality, and has somewhat the exter- 

 nal apx)earance of a cannel. 



The entire series of beds on Coal Creek and on Oak Creek, nearly to its 

 head, dips gently westward at an angle of about 7°. Xear the head of 

 Oak Creek, however, where it begins to cut its deeply-excavated channel 

 through the coal-bearing strata, these strata are tilted by their prox- 

 imity to Wet Mountain at quite a high angle, so that the dip of Coal F 

 is east-northeast 40J°. Immediately underlying this coal is a layer of 

 brownish shale, containing plentiful fragments of dicotyledonous wood. 



Coal G, which is opened hj a slight working, appears friable and of 

 inferior promise. 



