760 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



more. The coal lies here a little higher than at Swift's, but it dips 

 rapidly south again, and is some forty feet lower at Rush Run. 



At Mingo the coal is chiefly used in the furnace, and is coked on the 

 spot. Deep borings made at Mingo by J. C. Crane, Esq., show a worka- 

 ble coal seam three feet nine inches thick at the depth of one hundred 

 and thirty-nine feet below the Shaft Coal. This is doubtless the same 

 with that struck in boring on Cross Run, one hundred and forty-seven 

 feet below the seam which is the equivalent of the Steubenville shaft 

 coal. Just which of the Yellow Creek coals this lower one is cannot be 

 certainly determined. It is more likely, however, to be the representa- 

 tive of Coals No, 3 or No. 4 than of No. 5, as hafe been suggested. 



The coal is probably thinner at Mingo, because it originally accumu- 

 lated on higher ground. We find in all our coal mines that the coal is 

 thickest in the "swamps," and thin or wanting on the ridges. This 

 means that it accumulated as peat in a bog, of which the bottom was 

 irregular, and from which, in many cases, islands projected. Over these 

 islands no coal was formed, but on their sides it reached up to the water 

 line,, perhaps fifty feet or more above the deepest portion of the marsh. 

 When buried under clay and sand, and greatly compressed, the coal, 

 into which the peat was converted, occupies perhaps not more than one- 

 tenth of the space that the spongy peat did, but it will be found reach- 

 ing from the bottom of the basin where the peat was, and the coal is now 

 thickest over the shallows in diminished thickness, and up the slopes of 

 islands or shores to the original water-line, where it terminates in a 

 feather edge. 



LA GRANGE. 



At La Grange the La Grange Coal Co., of which Mr. John Lowe is 

 manager, have sunk a shaft to the Coal No. 6. The shaft is 261 feet 

 deep, beginning 87.56 feet above low witer in the Ohio, or 43,58 feet 

 above the grade of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad. By barome- 

 tric measurement Coal No. 8 lies 333 feet above the railroad at La Grange, 

 which would give for the distance between Coals Nos. 6 and 8, 550.42 feet. 

 I am informed by Mr. Lowe that he had the distance measured by level 

 some time since, and that it was found to be about 540 feet. The coal at 

 La Grange is five feet three inches thick, divided into three benches by 

 two slate partings of one inch each, respectively seven and twenty-eight 

 inches above the bottom. The shaft at La Grange was sunk under the 

 direction of Mr. Lowe, who was the pioneer in this mining enterprise, 

 and one of the principal stockholders in the compauy. He is one of the 

 best informed men in the county in regard to its geology, and we are 

 indebted to him for much valuable information and assistance in the 

 prosecution of the survey. 



