COSHOCTON COUNTY. 567 



In some localities in the county, two other beds of limestone make 

 their appearance : one, dark-gray, or black, above the " Gray limestone '' 

 and Coal No. G ; the other, a local bed, between the " Blue " or " Zoar," 

 and the " Gray " or " Putnam Hill limestone." In one place— Alexander 

 Hanlon's farm, Mill Creek township — these lower limestone beds seem to 

 run together, forming a nearly continuous mass, twenty feet in thick- 

 ness. Usualljr, the persistent limestone strata — the "Blue and the 

 " Gray " — are fifty to eighty feet apart. A coal seam (No. 3) generally lies 

 immediately under this limestone, also, but is rarely of any value ; and 

 the same may be said of the bed above it (No. 3a), and also of the next 

 below it (No. 2), both of which seem to be wanting in this county. The 

 limestones in the western and central parts of the county are frequently 

 accompanied by large quantities of the hard, flinty rock, known as chert. 

 There is often a great display of it, in loose pieces, in the roads above 

 and below the outcrops of these calcareous strata; but natural exposures 

 of it in place, are verj' rare. In several instances, the limestone beds are 

 seen intermixed with chert, and it is also noticed that chert sometimes 

 takes the place entirely of the limestone. 



A few other limestone beds have occasionally been noticed at a higher 

 position than the gray limestone, and one also between that and the 

 blue, but they are of rare occurrence, and have only a local interest, ex- 

 cept in their relation to limestone beds in similar part of the series in 

 other counties. 



The sandstone beds are sometimes developed to the thickness of 70 to 

 100 feet of massive layers. They are very apt, however, to pass into 

 their bedded sheets, and again into shales. Karely do they become even 

 slightly calcareous, and no instance was observed of their passing into 

 limestone. The mosi persistent of the sandstone beds, so far as it could 

 be traced before it disappears under the overlying strata, is the great bed 

 at the base of the Coal Measures. The bed over Coal No. 6 is also very 

 uniform. 



No iron ore, in any encouraging quantity, has been met with in the 

 county. It is seen scattered in kidney-shaped pieces among the shales, 

 but never concentrated sufficiently to justify drifting for it. There may 

 be one exception to this on the farms of James Boyd and W. Hanlon, in 

 Keene township, near Lewisville, where a slight exploration, made at 

 our suggestion, has developed, just below Coal bed No. 6 (or it may be 

 the one above it) ferruginous layers resembling the blackband ore, mixed 

 with kidney ore, said to be six feet thick. Kidney ore of good quality 

 is also found between Linton and Jacobsport, in the south-east part of 

 Linton township. 



