706 GEOLOGT OF OHIO, 



More difficulty has been experienced in harmonizing the observations 

 of different localities in this than in other parts of the field, and the at- 

 tempt to make a general section, of necessity, results in one that is only 

 approximately correct for any special locality. In places many of the 

 minerals designated will be wanting, and the associated rock strata will 

 vary both in thickness and character. 



Of the coals below the Great Vein, of which indications of four have 

 been observed, no one is known to be of workable thickness. That di- 

 rectly below the " Drift ore," at Haydenville, was cut by the tunnel on 

 the coal railroad, and showed twenty-two inches of coal. Coal No. 6 a, 

 according to levels made by Mr. Hayden's engineer, is here thirty-six feet 

 above the Great Vein,* and shows from twelve to thirty inches of shaly 

 coal. On George W. Gill's land, on Meeker's Run, south of Nelsonville, 

 it is twenty-eight feet above the Great Vein, is three and one-half feet 

 thick, and, so far as opened, appears to be of good quality. 



The Bayley's Run coal is here seventy-five to eighty feet above the 

 Great Vein, four to five feet thick, a hard, bright, compact, melting coal, 

 showing little sulphur, and gives promise of furnishing a good coke. 

 It is mined some ffve miles south and south-west of the mouth of 

 Meeker's Run, and is reported as reaching a thickness of six feet. There 

 is evidently a large area in this neighborhood, where it is undeveloped; 

 and if, as its appearance indicates, it is sufficiently free from sulphur to 

 make a good coke, its value can be hardly overestimated, supplementing 

 as it does the other iron-making products, and there being no other mate- 

 rial wanting for the cheap production of good iron. On the Cawthorne 

 property, on Snow Fork, Ward township, this coal is reported to be three 

 feet thick, and No. 6a is exposed from twenty-five to thirty feet above the 

 Great Vein, where it is four feet thick. In the hills between Nelsonville 

 and Straitsville, the outcrops of both of these coals may be seen, but no 

 openings into them have been made. Search should be made for these 

 upper coals on all the hills which reach their horizon; and wherever 

 they are of workable thickness, they should be mined before or simulta- 

 neously with the mining of the Great Vein. It should be esteemed a 

 crime to destroy the value of these upper coals by the too hasty mining 

 of that below ; and it is to be hoped that so much better results will be 

 obtained in iron-making, by mingling the fuel obtained from the difi'er- 

 ent horizons, that there will be no temptation to commit this error. 



* This interval is doubtless correctly given, .and the coal vhich Mr. Koy traces to this 

 point as an offshoot of the Great Vein, should not he confounded -with it. The latter is 

 No. 6o, and its horizon can he traced throughout nearly all this territory. 



