67-1 GEOLOGY OF OHIO 



Great Vein. There, near the top, a coal is mined which is, locally, four 

 and one half feet thick It is a soft, melting, bituminous coal, of very 

 fine quality. Mr. Nichols's section makes this coal 230 feet above the 

 Great Vein. 



IKON ORES. 



The outcrops of iron ores, apparentl}- of good quality, are abundant 

 on the slopes of most of the hills, but few of them have been systemati- 

 cally explored. Enough has been done, however, to demonstrate their 

 presence in considerable quantities, and of excellent quality. 



The lower ore, about 140 feet below the Great Vein, is below the sur- 

 face ; but, at the north-west of Lexington, it has been extensively mined,. 

 and shipped to the Zanesville furnaces. It is a fossiliferous ore, associ- 

 ated with the limestone, and contains characteristic limestone fossils. It 

 is not accessible in the immediate vicinity of any of the openings in the 

 Great Vein, but all the ore on this horizon can be made accessible by 

 transporting it a short distance. 



About ten feet below the lower Lexington coal, is the out-crop of the 

 Baird ore, ten inches thick. A stratum of sandstone separates it from 

 the coal above. Search should be made throughout this part of the field 

 for this very important ore, the true place of which is directly under the 

 fire-clay of this coal. 



Immediately below the Great Vein are frequent outcrops of a compact, 

 very hard, blue carbonate, which appears of good quality, the nodules,, 

 sometimes, being of large size, and found at varying distances from the 

 coal. I know of no explorations on this horizon about here, but in other 

 parts of the field, from fifteen to twenty feet of these shales contain ores 

 of good quality, and of workable thickness, found at varying distances 

 below the coal. This horizon is accessible in most of the territory north 

 of Moxahala village, and the indications of the presence of the ore are 

 in all respects favorable. 



A similar ore is also found in the shales, directly above the Great Vein, 

 sometimes scattered in nodules and thin bands through an interval of 

 eighteen feet ; but this horizon has likewise been little exposed, although 

 one exposure of good ore, one foot in thickness, was observed. 



About forty feet above the Great Vein, at Moxahala Station, a remark- 

 ably fine ore has been opened, called there the Norris Coal ore, because it 

 was believed to be near the horizon of that coal I would suggest for it 

 the name of the Moxahala ore. It is in large, massive nodules, the seven 

 feet of shales exposed disclosing the equivalent of from four to five feet 

 of solid ore, in part a brown oxide, and in part a blue carbonate. Both 



