738 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



the railroad at Linton. It is from two to two and a half feet in thick- 

 ness, furnishing an excellent coal, like that at Hammondsville. The 

 " Creek Vein " (Coal No. 3) lies about twenty feet below the grade of the 

 railroad. It has been opened near the hotel at the east end of the bridge 

 which crosses Yellow Creek. It is, at the outcrop, about three and a half 

 feet in thickness. It is of fairly good quality, but contains, as usual, 

 much sulphur. It was mined here for many years by the salt boilers. 

 The old entry is now closed, but the coal is said to have run out in the 

 hills — whether from a " horseback " or a slip can not now be determined — 

 and hence it was known as the "Lost Vein." 



It is reported that a coal seam from four to six feet in thickness was 

 once opened a few feet above No. 3, but it proved to be only local. It 

 was very soft, and seems rather to have been an accumulation of coaly 

 matter torn up from its original position and washed into some depression 

 by the water from which the associated shales and sandstones were de- 

 posited. The "Creek Vein," as mentioned above, was "cut out" in the 

 mine opened in this locality, and it is quite possible that the local deposit 

 referred to above was formed from its debris. 



A good example of the manner in which shales and coals were eroded 

 before the deposition of sandstones which rest on them, may be seen 

 alongside the railroad track between the Diamond Mine and the station. 

 Here the black shale over Coal No. 4 has been very irregularly furrowed 

 by currents which brought in and deposited sand upon it. The shale 

 having been here removed in building the railroad, shows the wavy and 

 irregular under-surface of the sandstone very distinctly. To fully com- 

 prehend such exhibitions it is necessary to realize that sandstones are 

 always deposits from water in rapid motion, while shales are the product 

 of deposition in quiet water, and coal was formed at the surface as peat 

 accumulates at the present day.' Hence where we find coal covered with 

 fine laminated shale, once a clay, we know that a peat bog was quietly 

 submerged and covered with more or less turbid water, from which the 

 clay was thrown down as a sediment. Where sandstones and conglom- 

 erates irregularly replace shales over coal, we know that the quiet of the 

 first period of submergence was followed by a stormy one, where waves 

 and currents swept over what had been the bottom of still water, carry- 

 ing away more or less of the soft material, and bringing in sand and 

 gravel to take its place. 



On the south side of Yellow Creek, at its mouth, the exposures of the 

 rocks are very imperfect. In the hill below the post-ofl&ce a coal seam 

 occurs fifty feet above the railroad. It is reported to be thirty inches 

 thick, and is probably Coal No. 6. The place of Coals Nos. 3 and 4 should 



