HOLMES COUNTY. 657 



coal is well opened, of good thickness and quality. The following is a 

 section at this place : 



Sandstoue. 



Black shale 4 to 5 feet. 



Cannel coal , 1 foot. 



Black shale 6 inches. 



Impure sulphury coal - 9 feet 10 inches. 



Coal, good (sulphur seam at center, 2 inches) 3 feet. 



Soft fire-clay, with iron ore 15 to 20 feet. 



An excellent entry has been driven into the hill, and extensive prepa- 

 rations made for mining. The entry is two hundred and eighty-five feet 

 above the railroad in the valley below, and bad engineering to overcome 

 this rise, together with poor management, involved the company in seri- 

 ous embarrassments before any large amount of coal was taken out, so 

 that the most of the money invested in the enterprise was lost. The 

 debris at the mouth of the mine discredits the coal with the very large 

 amount of sulphur shown in it, but from an examination of the face of 

 the coal, it is evident that with proper care it can be sent to the market 

 with no large amount of this impurity. 



Coal No. 7. — The sandstone above Coal No. 6 is generally massive, and 

 reaches a thickness varying from thirty to ninety feet. It constitutes 

 one of the most prominent features of the geology of the county, fre- 

 qently forming precipitous blufis, with clean rock exposures, and in 

 places its debris, in large masses, so covers thje slopes of the hills as to 

 entirely unfit them for cultivation. Large blocks of this sandstone are 

 found in most of the valleys of recent erosion, and from these detached 

 pieces the greater part of the rock quarried in the county for bridge and 

 building stone has been obtained. It marks accurately the horizon of 

 Coal No. 6 below it, and of No. 7 above, except that in places it has ap- 

 parently cut away, removing the lower of these coals. 



No. 7 is generally ari excellent coal, containing a small percentage of 

 ash and little sulphur. At Taylor's Bank, in Knox township, it is from 

 four to six feet thick, with a shale roof and fine clay below. No better 

 coal than this is found in the county, but it is so near the surface that 

 it is soft, rusty, and uninviting in appearance, and the area covered by 

 it is not large. On Mr. E. Glascoe's land it is so near the surface as to 

 be quite worthless, and throughout most of the county it is either want- 

 ing, or so near the tops of the hills, as to be of little value. Its outcrop 

 may be traced in the hills in the neighborhood of the Taylor and of the 

 Holmes County Company's Mine, in Mechanic township, and in all the 

 high hills in the neighborhood of Saltillo. Under Berlin vilkge it is 



