142 LOWER PENINSULA. 



that the best pieces of the coal had been picked out from the 

 heap before I saw it, the quantity taken away could be but 

 very small in comparison with the slate masses left there. The 

 transitions of the slate rock into cannel coal of good quality are rep- 

 resented in all gradations ; much of the slate is so rich in carbon, 

 that it burns freely, but leaves so large a proportion of ashes as 

 to make it unfit for fuel. 



The seams of true cannel coal interstratified with the slates burn 

 with a residue of a small quantity of pulverulent ashes. The slates 

 contain numerous specimens of a small Lingula, and on several 

 slabs I found clusters of fish-scales scattered over a space hav- 

 ing the outlines of a small fish in decomposed, compressed condi- 

 tion. After my first visit to the coal shaft, it was pumped out, 

 was somewhat deepened, and a gallery was driven from its bot- 

 tom 30 feet sideways. Some weeks later, when I visited the shaft 

 again, I found it abandoned and filled with water, but from the 

 additional rubbish thrown out, it can be seen that the black slate 

 is underlaid by an arenaceous fire-clay inclosing stems and leaves 

 of Stigmaria. 



The position of the shaft is in Town. 19, R. 4, Sect. 3. In the 

 same section two other experimental borings were made on the 

 opposite side of the river. In one, sand rock was struck under a 

 cover of 25 feet of drift ; the boring went 20 feet into the sand 

 rock, and was then interrupted, no signs of coal being found. The 

 other boring, executed by Mr. Ortmann, of East Saginaw, was con- 

 tinued to a depth of 190 feet. First came drift 21 feet, and then 

 alternations of blue shales and sand rock ; near the bottom a seam 

 of iron pyrites was found, and under it black shales, but no coal. 



Another drill-hole, three quarters of a mile southeast of the above 

 borings, sunk to a depth of lOO feet, struck sand rock and shale 

 beds under a drift cover 60 feet in thickness, but found no signs of 

 coal. Another boring to the depth of 100 feet, in Sect. 17 of the 

 same town, went altogether through drift, without reaching the 

 rock. Further east, on the lower part of Rifle River, Mr. Rams- 

 dall made some experiments, in Town. 19, R. 5 east. He found drift, 

 36 feet ; sandstone, 35 feet ; blue shale, 34 feet ; pyritous rock, 2 feet ; 

 blue shales, 14 feet, until, at 120 feet below the surface, the boring 

 was given up. South from there, in Town. 19, R. 4, Sect. 10, he found. 



