HOLMES COUNTY. 549 



At James Martin's bank, north, and in th« same township^ it is tw© 

 feet thick, hard, bright, compact, a semi-feloek coal, but containing much 

 sulphur. Above it are ten feet of hard, dark, sandy shales. On John 

 and Charles Steel's land, in Hardy township, north of Judge Armory's, it 

 is two feet three in-ches thick, in three beaches, roof massive, bituminous 

 shaie, coal semi-bituminous, and with much sulphur. When examined, 

 it had been opened only to the distance of a f«w feet, and was said to be 

 increasing in thickness, and improving in <juality. 



At John <]arey''s, west of the Killbuck, sand near Millersburg, it is 

 also tw® feet three inches thick, in three benches, separated by sulphur- 

 seams, and of no valu^e. The sand-rock rests directly on the ooal 



The outcrop of thi-s seam can fee seen in the ravine below the Hardy 

 Coal €0mpany"'s banks ; on Barney Carpenter's land, near th« east line oi 

 Monroe township, and in various other places. Over more than iialf of 

 tthe county the deep ravines are below its horizon, and it wilr dcMibtless 

 he found in many other places. It gives promise of affording much coal 

 of good quality, and probably some of it e(j[ual to the best typical block 

 ooal 



The shales above it vary in thickness from a few indies to fifteen feet 

 and in places' aa-e entirely wanting, the fiandstone resting directly on the 

 <coal. It is probable they were originally deposited of a nearly uniform 

 thickness, and that the agencies which brought in the coarse material of 

 the sandstone have cut down .and removed the shale, doubtless carrying 

 away also, in places, the entir-e body c£ the coaL 



From ten to thirty feet above Coal No. 1 is a local deposit of 'Coal and 

 iron, which I have been able to trace over a large part of the county 

 west of tb-e Killbuck. The best expos^ures of it are on Locust Lick Eun, 

 on Mr. Ellison''s land, in the west part of Monroe township; below 

 Mitchart's bank, a little south and west of this ; on Carpenter''s land. 

 ■west of the Hardy Coal Company's and Mr. Sanders's bank^-; in the ra- 

 vines south and west of the Hardy Coal Company's lower bank; and on 

 Shaffer''s land, west of Nashville, in Washington township. It consist* 

 •of from ten to twelve inches of cannel coal, and about tiie saime thickness 

 <jf bituminous coal below it, with a band of massive iron ore between the 

 benches. The ore is in places iiighly bitsuminous, resembling a compact 

 t)lack band:; in other places it is cakar«ous or argillaoeou-s. It is re- 

 ported in some localities as four feet thick, but I have seen it reaching a, 

 thickness of only eight to ten inches, with scattered patches and nodules 

 of ore above and below it. In some places, one or both benches of coal 

 disappear, and are separated by layers of carbonaceous shale. Occasion- 

 ally the two benches of coal have a much larger interval between them,. 



