SUPPLEMENTAL EEPOET — HANGING EOCK DISTEICT. 917 



height of twenty to forty-five feet above Coal No. V. This former measure is 

 observed in the northern part of the district; the latter in the southern. 

 A better known horizon with which to associate it is found, however, in 

 the Gray Limestone and the ore that accompanies it. Coal No. VI lies 

 from thirty to fifty feet above the Baird ore in Hocking county. The 

 single measure that will best represent the facts if forty-two feet. -This 

 measure is held almost, without wavering, through Hocking, Vinton, 

 and northern Jackson counties. The interval begins to expand in Mil- 

 ton township, Jackson county, at Keystone Furnace. In Bloomfield 

 township it has become fifty-five feet. In the next ten miles another 

 gain of ten feet is made, and from this point on the best measure of the 

 interval is sixty five feet. South of Keystone Furnace the seam is known 

 as the Sheridan Coal, while to the northward any one of a half dozen 

 names can be used to designate it. The most common designations are 

 derived from the great mining centers, Nelsonville and Straitsville. 

 Along the line of the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad it is styled the 

 Carbondale Coal or the Mineral City Coal. 



It is not neces?ary at this point to go into any detailed description of 

 Coal No. VI. Full accounts of its quantity and quality in the Hocking 

 Valley, have been already given in the present volume. West of the 

 Hocking River, it is gradually reduced in volume. A few mines are 

 opened in Starr and York townships which hold six or even seven feet 

 of coal, but the common measure of three and one-half to five feet is 

 soon reached, and that is held through the townships of Brown, 

 Swan, Madison and a part of Elk, in Vinton county. In all of these 

 townships the coal everywhere holds its place and its quality is, in the 

 main, excellent. 



It will be remembered that the seam, in the region of its greatest 

 develooment, occurs in not less than three benches. In following it south- 

 ward, the lower one of these divisions, shrinks rapidly, being found 

 but six inches thick along the line of the Marietta road, (Carbondale and 

 Mineral City Coals). In Clinton township, Vinton county, the lower 

 bench is altogether lost and the upper division is also much reduced, the 

 main thickness of the seam (three feet) being found in the middle bench. 

 A mark here comes in by which the seam can be followed without the 

 slightest difficulty or uncertainty to the southward. The uppermosi 

 bench is separated from the middle bench by four to six inches of hard 

 fire-clay. The seam holds this peculiarity until it comes to be known 

 by a new name, viz., the Sheridan Cual, of Gallia county. In Jackson 

 county the upper bench is found only as s)ft coal and is not mined, the 

 middle -bench being all that remains of the great vein of the Hocking 



