CAREOLL COUNTY. 185 



quently weigh from twenty to fifty pounds. Horsebacks, from above and 

 below, are somewhat annoying, as they cut out the coal quite seriously. 

 No fire-damp has been known in this mine, but choke-damp is said to 

 accumulate at times so as to embarrass the workmen. The coal is hard 

 and brilliant, and can be mined only by blasting. It affords an excellent 

 fuel for domestic use, burning well and giving off intense heat, but the 

 proportion of pyrites is so large as to unfit it for employment in the 

 manufacture of either iron or illuminating gas. At Smith's mill, near 

 Leesville, this coal has been mined in the hill, and at a short distance 

 below the mill it is worked somewhat largely during the winter. As 

 the owner of this property has no respect for geologists, and regards the 

 Survey as a worse than useless expenditure on the part of the State, no 

 direct information respecting the mine could be obtained. I learned, 

 however, that the coal is soft and can be mined with picks; that it burns 

 readily, but gives off comparatively little heat, and is not looked upon 

 as a profitable fuel. In this vicinity no iroa ore was observed in con- 

 nection with the coal. 



Near the Cross Roads, in Monroe township, the outcrop of this coal 

 was seen in the roadside, very thin, and having four inches of nodular 

 ore above it. In Harrison township it was formerly worked on the 

 property of Mrs. S. Bemer, where it showed a thickness of two and one- 

 half to three feet, without ore above it. Near the steam saw-mill, about 

 midway between Cannonsburg and Carrollton, this coal was formerly 

 worked, but the openings were long ago deserted. The thickness is said 

 to be about two feet. Fifteen feet below the coal is a nodular calcareous 

 ore of low grade, of which the nodules have zinc blende as the nucleus. 

 In Center township Mr. I. Ebersole's opening, about one-half mile north 

 from Carrollton, shows it twenty-five inches thick, without partings, 

 made up of very fair coal, containing little pyrites. At Mr. Sandford 

 Moffatt's, two miles west from the village, the thickness is about the 

 same, but the coal contains rather more pyrites. There are other open- 

 ings near Carrollton, but they are not worked. Three-fourths of a mile 

 south from that village the coal is seen in the bed of Indian Fork of 

 Conotton. 



In Fox township it is mined somewhat extensively to supply local de- 

 mand. About one mile from Wattsville, Mr. H. P. Dunlap's opening 

 shows a thickness of three feet four inches. The coal is very hard, and 

 requires blasting. It is very clean, and the seam is free from persistent 

 partings. Not far from Mechanicsville it is mined by Messrs. Josiah 

 Quinn, Jacob Buckston, and others. In all these banks it runs about three 

 feet thick, and yields a coal of good quality for domestic use. No ore ac- 



