SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT — HOCKING VALLEY. 845 



the beds of the streams. At Ferrara, the seam was found to be eleyen 

 feet six inches thick twenty-nine feet below the surface of the bank of 

 the creek. On Dodson's Branch of the Middle Fork, a boring on the 

 Fisher place revealed the coal to be ten feet ten inches thick fifty-three 

 feet below the surface. Here the seam was covered by four feet of shale. 

 In a branch of the West Fork, between Ferrara and Buckingham, Mr. 

 Black found, in boring, the coal to be twelve feet thick. On the Abra- 

 ham Post farm, on Middle Fork, section twenty-seven, Monroe township, 

 a boring revealed a thickness of nine feet six inches. 



From these facts it will be seen that there is on the upper Sunday 

 Creek waters an immense body of coal, and that here the Nelson ville 

 seam has its greatest dev-elopment. I know of no other locality west of 

 the Alleghany Mountains, where so much good coal can be found in a 

 single seam. The coal is very dry-burning, and also remarkable for its 

 very small percentage of sulphur. That it will prove a very superior 

 fuel for smelting iron, I have not the least doubt, nor that it is to play a 

 most conspicuous part in the future metallurgical industries of the West. 

 When railroads now projected are completed, this coal field will be 

 brought into easy connection with the vast deposits of black-band ores 

 of the State, and with the rich Lake Superior ores. The latter ores will 

 be brought to this coal as cheaply as they are now taken to Pittsburgh, 

 where fuel is more expensive. Eecent investigations made by me, show 

 that Ohio is extremely rich in black-band ores, not only in those over 

 Coal No. 7, as in Tuscarawas county, but over Coal No. 5 — the latter be- 

 ing of great promise. 



If we follow the Nelsonville seam south of Buckingham into Athens 

 county, we find a considerable area, or perhaps several small areas, where 

 the seam is thin and of little value. South of this defective region, the 

 coal becomes thick and valuable. I have the detailed record of a large 

 number of borings within the doubtful territory. They generally disclose 

 the Nelsonville seam, but in diminished thickness. It is always found, 

 if found at all, in its proper geological horizon, and where the dip would 

 carry it. A profile, published in the Report of the State Mine Inspector 

 for 1877, stated to have " been compiled from materials gathered by the 

 Geological Survey," showing the supposed position of the coal seams 

 along a north and south line between Snow Fork and Sunday Creek, 

 presents a very remarkable anticlinal in the Nelsonville seam. This 

 seam is known to dip below drainage south of Buckingham; and at the 

 Blondin shaft, in fraction thirty-six, Trimble township, Athens county, 

 it is ninety-four feet six inches below the surface. Between these points, 

 on Johnson's Run, the profile referred to brings up the seam above the 



