CARROLL COUNTY. 181 



county, varying greatly in hardness, color, and composition, but every 

 where exhibiting the same grouping of fossils, which renders its identi- 

 fication so easy and makes it so valuable a guide to the stratigraphical 

 relations of a district. 



The shales immediately underlying the Crinoidal limestone contain a 

 small percentage of iron. There are few localities, however, where it is 

 concentrated, and in none is the concentration sufficient to afford a work- 

 able seam of ore. In the neighborhood of CarroUton, both west and 

 south, a seam of inferior blackband, varying from three to six inches in 

 thickness, is seen three feet below the limestone. In the coal shaft near 

 Harlem, Lee township, two seams of blackband are said to have been 

 cut, one three and the other four feet thick. The shaft was closed at the 

 time of my examination and no specimens had been preserved, so that 

 no definite information could be obtained. It is most likely that dark 

 shale has been mistaken for blackband, as no evidence of the latter was 

 seen in any of the numerous exposures near the village. In the vicin- 

 ity of Cannonsburg, Monroe township, the occurrence of ferruginous 

 shale at this horizon has given birth to much excitement, and the oracu- 

 lar statements of some would-be experts have done much toward rousing 

 false hopes in the minds of the inhabitants. A number of localities in 

 this township, said to show from ten to fourteen feet of blackband, were 

 examined ; but in every case the "blackband" proved to be only a dark, 

 slightly bituminous shale, containing for the most part a very small per- 

 centage of iron, and holding here and there an inch of lean plate ore. 

 As the owners generally expressed themselves dissatisfied with the re- 

 sults of merely physical examination, specimens of the shale obtained 

 on the farm of Dr. Samuel Black were forwarded to Dr. Wormley, with 

 the request that he would determine the percentage of iron. He reports 

 its composition to be as follows : 



Silicious matter 74.88 



Metallic iron 8.31 



Undetermined I6.0I 



100 00 

 In Brown township, near Waynesburg, a good deal of money has been 

 wasted in digging well-holes in this shale, the prospectors supposing 

 that it is the extension of the blackband belt of Tuscarawas county. A 

 little investigation would have shown that the horizon is too high, as 

 the blackband, which is quarried only five miles from this locality, lies 

 upon Coal No. 7, more than one hundred feet below this shale. A day's 

 careful examination by a competent geologist would not only have pre- 



