COAL FIELDS. 27S 



The most important mines of the Sharon coal in northern Ohio are 

 now confined to the Massillon field of Stark county. Mining is here car- 

 ried on with a fair measure of vigor in several bodies of coal. All of 

 these deposits are reached by shafts of greater depth than was required 

 in any of the early mines, but there is no considerable body of the coal 

 known that has not been already attacked. The end of the field cannot 

 be removed more than a few years at furthest from the present time. 



A few spurs of the Massillon field extend into Wayne county, but 

 they are of small extent and value. 



From this point southward to Jackson county, the Sharon coal is 

 not mined except in an occasional drift bank, opened for the supply of 

 one or more households of the immediate neighborhood. 



In Jackson county, the Sharon seam has long been worked on a 

 moderate scale under the name of the Jackson Shaft coal. The mines 

 in this seam are still in operation, but the boundaries of the known areas 

 are all in sight and not far distant. A full account of this field is to be 

 found in volume V, Geol. of Ohio. i 



From this review is seen that the Sharon coal belongs mainly to the 

 past, and is no longer an important feature in the supply of Ohio coals. 

 As explained above, this is the reason why no mapping of the Sharon 

 field has been attempted, in connection with the present volume. The 

 areas of the coal now known, if delineated, would be insignificant, while 

 if the old. boundaries were represented as coal lands, the representation 1 

 would prove misleading. ; 



The Qimakertown Coal. — The second coal of the Pennsylvania 

 series, counting upwards, is named the Quakertown coal, from a 

 locality in the Mahoning Valley. It is here a thin seam, lying about fifty 

 feet above the Sharon coal. It was once mined at Quakertown, Pa., on 

 the small scale. The Quakertown seam can be plainly followed into Ohio 

 through all the counties in which the Sharon coal is or has been mined. 

 Its place in the series is well marked, being between the two division of the 

 Conoquenessing or Massillon Sandstone and it is not likely to be either 

 missed or confounded with any other seam in the explorations by the drill 

 which are carried forward in the field. It is familiarly known in the dis- , 

 tricts in which the Sharon coal occurs as the rider seam. It seldom 

 reaches a thickness of more than eighteen inches in northern Ohio and is 

 often reduced to a black mark. At many points to the southward a thin 

 coal is found within one hundred feet of the base of the Conglomerate 

 group which may represent the Quakertown coal, but the facts do not 

 warrant anything more than the probable reference of these occurrences 

 to this horizon. 



The Wells ton or Jackson Hill Coal. — In Jackson and Vinton counties, 

 one hundred or more feet above the horizon of the Jackson Shaft coal, a val- 

 uable coal seam is found. It is locally known as the Jackson Hill coal, and 

 also as the Wellston seam. The latter designation is decidedly to be pre- 



18 G. O. 



