324 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



individual has attempted or practiced a fraud. This is the province of 

 the courts, upon a proper case being presented to them. It is enough to 

 say here that there is some mistake in regard to these pretended dipcov- 

 eries. Thin seams of carbonaceous matter or thick beds of bituminous 

 shale may be reached by boring in this vicinity, but no coal seams will 

 ever be found beneath the city of Mansfield or the adjacent country, and 

 all pretended discoveries of them may at once be set down as either 

 frauds or mistakes. The only place where coal can possibly be found in 

 the county is near the tops of the hills of the north-eastern part. In 

 none of the hills examined were Coal M'-^asure rocks found,' and the 

 highest are capped with the Carboniferous Conglomerate, which is below 

 the coal ; so that the probabilities are that no coal will be found in any 

 of the hills. Explorations in Holmes county have shown that hills 

 of Waverly rock in places rose above the margin of the old coal swamps, 

 and that coal is now found near them at a lower level. It is therefore 

 barely possible that some outlying deposit may exist in this part of the 

 county, and that these have not been discovered in making the Survey. 

 It may be positively asserted, however, that no extensive and valuable 

 deposits of coal will ever be found west of the Holmes county line in 

 Richland. 



