74 GEOLOGY OP OHIO. 



massive sandstone, which is prone to run into conglomerate, though the 

 pebbles it contains are rarely larger than bean's. This sandstone, which, 

 from its development on the upper Stillwater, we have called the Still- 

 water sandstone, in some places so much resembles the Mahoning sand- 

 stone below, that the two have been confounded, and the coal seams Nos. 

 7 and 6, which hold the same relative position to these two sandstone 

 beds, have been mistaken one for the other. It is, however, generally 

 not difficult to distinguish the two groups, for coal No. 7, in Tuscarawas 

 county, nearly always thin, has almost invariably an important deposit 

 of iron over it, either blackband, " mountain," or kidney ore, and at no 

 great distance above it, the red shales may usually be found. An excel- 

 lent exhibition of No. 7 and its strata, can be seen in the divide between 

 New Philadelphia and New Cumberland. On opposite sides of this 

 divide, the valleys cut down to the Putnam Hill limestone, so that going 

 from either, the starting point is the same. The best section is obtained 

 from the New Philadelphia side. Here the limestone lies just in the 

 bottom of the valley, above which are Coal Nos. 5 and 6, in their normal 

 places — the first thin, the latter from three to five feet thick, and good. 

 About one hundred feet above this, Coal No. 7 may be seen in the road, 

 apparently not more than two feet in thickness ; over this the kidney 

 ore, and in places the mountain and blackband ores, forms of this iron 

 deposit which frequently alternate. 



Above the iron horizon, lies a bed of red, yellow and mottled shale, of 

 which the colors are bright and strikirg; a formation characteristic of 

 this level. Over the shale is the Stillwater sandstone, here compara- 

 tively thin, but in part a well marked conglomerate. Above this, a 

 heavy mass of olive shales, the typical barren measure material,- reaches 

 one hundred feet higher to the top of Mt. Tabor. 



Blackband and Mountain Ore. — The blackband ore of Tuscarawas county 

 has been so fully investigated during the forty years through which it 

 has been sought and worked, and so fully described in our reports, that 

 comparatively little will need to he said of it here. It is already known 

 to most persons that this variety of ore is simply a black bituminous 

 shale impregnated with iron. The degree of impregnation varies 

 greatly; most of our black shales contain some iron, but generally too 

 little to have any value as ores. In those varieties which are classed as 

 blackband ore, the quantity of metallic iron varies from twenty-five to 

 forty per cent. 



To an uneducated eye this material has very little the appearance of 

 an iron ore, and would be, and doubtless has been, frequently passed as 

 simply a black shale. It is highly charged with carbonaceous matter, 



