CHAPTER LXXXVIII. 



SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT ON PERRY COUNTY, AND PORTIONS 

 OF HOCKING AND ATHENS COUNTIES. 



BY B. B. ANDREWS. 



The Ohio Geological- Survey was inaugurated in June, 1869. A con- 

 siderable part of the working season of that year was spent by me and 

 my assistants in determining the general outlines of the different geo- 

 logical formations in the Second, or South-eastern, district, and in pre- 

 paring my portion of the geological map published iti the Report for 

 1869. That work done, the remainder of the season was devoted to the 

 Hocking Valley, and the region east of it in portions of Perry, Hocking, 

 and Athens counties. The dominant geological feature of the region 

 was the Nelsonville seam of coal, which was traced through many town- 

 ships, and its varying fortunes of thickness and quality carefully noted. 

 Many analyses of the coal from various locations were made by Professor 

 Wormley, and the value of the coal of this great seam so fully authenti- 

 cated that, in a short time, capital was attracted to the region, and rail- 

 roads were constructed to carry the products of a stimulated mining 

 industry to various markets. Cautiously, Professor Wormley and myself 

 felt our way to the conclusion expressed in the first Report, that the coal 

 of this seam, from certain localities investigated, was adapted, in the 

 raw or uncoked state, to the manufacture of iron in the blast furnace. 

 This conclusion has since been abundantly verified, and to-day furnaces 

 are in successful operation in locations among the hills which, in 1869, 

 would have been considered very remote, if not entirely inaccessible. 

 The coal has also been found to be well adapted to many other important 

 uses which, if less exacting as to purity of fuel, are none the lesa 

 important. 



Besides the investigations of coal, such other leading geological features 

 of the region as the limited season of labor in 1869 left it possible to 

 gather up, were presented in the Peport. The next year our stops were 

 necessarily directed elsewhere, for it was expected that the survey of the 

 whole State would be completed in three years, and the law so required. 



