HOCKING VALLEY. 667 



Coal 8 inches. 



Shale 1 " 



Coal .' 12—18 " 



In some of the neighboring mines, there is four feet of good, dry-burn- 

 ing coal, with little sulphur and well adapted to smelting purposes. It 

 was with coal from this neighborhood that the first practical tests of this 

 seam were made in smelting furnaces. About one thousand tons were 

 hauled by wagons to the railroad for the use of the Ohio Iron Company, 

 at Zanesville, and gave good results. 



At the new town of Moxahala, several entries have been made into a 

 coal which has been regarded as No. 6a, or the Norris coal. It is here, by 

 survey, fifty-two feet above the bottom of the coal in the shaft of the 

 Moxahala Iron Company, which is regarded as the Great Vein, but which 

 is only four feet seven inches thick. This coal is mined by Mr. Black, 

 north of the village, and at all the openings is a dry-burning coal having 

 all the characteristics of the Great Vein. Explorations for it show that 

 it is not continuous ; has an undulating roof and floor of sandstone or 

 sandy shale, with thin patches of fire clay both at the bottom and top. 

 The great sand rock, the Mahoning sandstone, which is a characteristic 

 feature in the geology of this region, is just above it, and the interval 

 between it and the coal below is filled with the blue sandy shale (con- 

 taining comminuted fragments of coal plants) which is ordinarily inter- 

 spersed between the same stem and the Great Vein. A section here 

 would disclose the following strata ; 



FT. IN. 



Mahoniog sandstone 40 



Coal 0to7 



Blue sandy shale , R2 



Shaft coal ■ 4 7 



This massive sandstone, at the top of the section, can be traced south- 

 ward to its normal position above the Great Vein coal, and with the 

 Norris coal, or No. 6a, above it. The coal at Moxahala, directly below 

 the sand rock, extends but a short distance, in undulating patches, north 

 or south. At the south-east corner of Pleasant township, its place is des- 

 ignated by a narrow, waving band ot carbonaceous matter at the base of 

 the sandstone, while the Great Vein coal, of normal thickness, is dis- 

 closed by boring from twenty to twenty- five feet below its base. Farther 

 explorations are required before the true relations of these coals can be 

 regarded as demonstrated. All the facts now accessible, point to the con- 

 clusion that, at Moxahala, the Great ^ein is represented both by the 

 shaft coal and the local coal there, fifty-two feet above it. If this is cor- 

 rect, a local subsidence interrupted the deposition of the Great Vein coal 



