NORTHERN AND WESTERN OUTCROP IN OHIO 79 



In Summit county, west from Portage, the Sharon sandstone is said 

 to be about 100 feet thick, becoming toward the bottom a mass of 

 quartz pebbles, with just enough sand to hold them together; but these 

 are coarser than in Portage, varying in size from that of a hickory nut 

 to that of a man's fist. The ordinary irregularity of the Sharon coal 

 bed is increased by inroads of the Connoquenessing sandstone, whereby 

 it has been removed in many places. The Lower Mercer coal bed with 

 its Blue limestone is from 130 to 160 feet above the Sharon, and the 

 Putnam Hill limestone is from 25 to 40 feet higher. The report on this 

 county deals almost wholly with economic descriptions of the several 

 coal beds, and no local sections are given. The Homewood sandstone 

 is as indefinite as in Portage.* 



A small area of Pottsville remains in Medina county, northwest from 

 Summit, and shows the Sharon sandstone about 130 feet thick, a coarse 

 sandstone with some pebbles; but these, in contrast with the Summit 

 County conditions, are for the most part very small. The Connoque- 

 nessing sandstone in the southwest corner of the county appears to be 

 but 40 feet thick, separated by 48 feet of shale from the Sharon or Brier 

 Hill coal bed, which at the locality described is 5 feet thick. f 



Evidently the Sharon sandstone decreases rapidly toward southern 

 Summit, for in Stark county, south from Summit and Portage, it is but 

 20 to 50 feet thick. The Sharon coal bed in this county is extremely 

 irregular in occurrence, and has become variable in quality as well as 

 in quantity, though in one portion its excellence is typical, and the 

 bed is of great economical importance, so that it was named by New- 

 berry the Massillon coal bed. The Connoquenessing (Massillon) sand- 

 stones are distinctly such in the Canton boring, as well as in many 

 others ; but the Upper is less persistent as a sandstone than is the Lower. 



The Quakertown coal bed is commonly present and is known as the 

 "fifteen-inch bed," though rarely exceeding 1 foot, and the interval to 

 the Sharon is given as from 50 to 80 feet. A thin coal bed often under- 

 lies the Lower sandstone, almost always where the Sharon shale has not 

 been cut out by the sandstone. One of Professor Orton's records shows 

 that the cutting during or prior to the deposition of the sandstone must 

 have been very deep. The Lower Mercer limestone and coal bed are 

 persistent, though the coal is rarely of any value. The Upper limestone 

 and coal bed are here but evidently very irregular in occurrence, for 

 Newberry gives the interval from the Putnam Hill to the Lower lime- 

 stone as 20 to 50 feet of shale and sandstone " sometimes containing a 

 local coal and limestone." A boring at Alliance, in the northeast cor- 



*.J. S. Newberry: Vol. i, pp. 212, 213, 214, 217, 218. 

 t A. W. Wheat: Vol. iii, pp. 363, 378. 



