783 GEOLOOT OF OHIO. 



are confined to the northern margin of the great Allegheny coal-field ; 

 and in support of this view the fact has been cited, that no coal of work- 

 able thickness has been found in many borings that have been made for 

 oil or coal in the counties that lie south and east of those where Coal No. 1 

 is mined ; but no facts yet known can justify any very positive assertion 

 on this subject. It is true that a great number of borings have been 

 made in the interior of the coal-field which have passed below the horizon 

 of Coal No. 1, without striking any workable coal ; but it is also true 

 that coal of good thicknesiB has been reached at a few points far south of 

 the outcrops of Coal No. 1, and that at depths which make it almost certain 

 that this was the seam struck. For example, Dr. J. A. Dales reached a 

 workable seam of coal at Limaville, just south of the line of Portage 

 county, at the depth of about one hundred and seventy feet from the sur- 

 face. This coal is said to have a thickness of four feet, and analyses 

 made of the borings, preserved by Dr. Dales, show the coal to have the 

 peculiar chemical and physical characters of that of the Mahoning Val- 

 ley. If the facts in reference to this exploration are correctly reported, 

 they afford almost demonstrative evidence of the existence in that 

 region of a basin of Coal No. 1. 



A boring made by Mr. Sheets, of Palestine, on Bull Creek, near Achor, 

 is stated by him to have passed through a coal seam of workable thick- 

 ness 166 feet below the bottom of the valley. Here again, if the facts 

 are as stated, we have evidence of the presence of Coal No. 1, in a work- 

 able bed far south of any mine yet opened on it. In the valley of the 

 Little Beaver, below New Lisbon, Mr. H. C. Bowman had borings made 

 -which passed through a thin coal seam about the place of Coal No 1 ; 

 and a workable coal is reported as passed through one hundred and 

 forty feet below the surface of the Ohio, in some of the oil wells at 

 Smith's Ferry. On the other hand, a very large number of borings 

 made for oil or gas in the valley of the Onio, south of Mahoning county, 

 have given no evidence of the presence of a workable coal seam below 

 drainage. Hence we must conclude that Coal No. 1, is at least often 

 absent from its proper place in the interior of the coal-field ; but no facts 

 yet known afford proof that there are no valuable basins of it much 

 farther south than any yet worked. The borings made for oil, which 

 would seem to have tested so perfectly some portions of the territory, 

 rarely afford any reliable information in regard to the details of the 

 strata passed through. They are generally bored with a rope drill, and 

 with a special and single object in view, viz, to strike oil; and 

 every thing else is usually neglected. Again, if the borings made in 

 the interior of the coal-field, had been carefully conducted, they are too 



