160 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



In Meigs county Coal No. 8 underlies a large part of the surface, 

 maintains a thickness of from four to six feet, and yields a coal which is 

 highly esteemed as both a steam and mill coal. It is very largely mined 

 at Pomeroy and vicinity, and many thousand tons have been annually 

 shipped from this point for many years. The coal from this region is so 

 well known that no description is required of it. 



In the report on Belmont county by Prof. J. J. Stevenson a detailed 

 description will be found of our upper coals, and some facts of special 

 interest are there reported in regard to the Pittsburgh seam. He appar- 

 ently demonstrates that while in western Belmont county it is a single 

 seam, on the Ohio at Bellaire it is represented by four coals, three of 

 which occupy the space between Coal No. 8 and Coal No. 9, this interval 

 having been increased from fifty feet at Barnesville to one hundred and 

 fifty feet on the river. By carefully tracing Coal No. 8 and its associated 

 strata along their western line of outcrop to Steubenville, and thence 

 down the valley of the Ohio to Bellaire, he demonstrated the continuity 

 of the large coal at Bellaire with that at Salesville and Barnesville ; and 

 since Coal No. 10 certainly, and Coal No. 9 probably, are continuous, 

 each on its proper horizon, the three coals above the Pittsburgh in the 

 Bellaire section seem to have no representative in the western part of 

 Belmont county, unless Coal No. 8 is the equivalent of the entire group 

 below No. 9 on the Ohio. It is Prof. Stevenson's opinion that Coals Nos. 

 8a, 86, and 8c — the three seams above the Pittsburgh in the Bellaire 

 section — are offshoots from Coal No. 8, and that they all run together. 

 Prom the facts which he reports this would seem to be an almost neces- 

 sary conclusion. 



Whether they are connected with the Pittsburgh coal or are independ- 

 ently intercalated seams, they afford evidence of unequal subsidence of 

 neighboring portions of the coal area during the deposition of the Pitts- 

 burgh coal. This has occasioned immense disparity in the intervals 

 between Coals No. 8 and No. 10 at the east and west ends of Belmont 

 county, and gives us fresh proof of the fallacy of the theory of the par- 

 allelism of coal seams. 



Analyses op Coal No. 8. 



Lagrange (average), Jefferson county. 



David Brown, Pease township, Belmont county. 



K. Crawford, 



J. Culderhead, Short Creek township, Harrison county. 



Allison's bank (average of 3), Harrison county. 



Federal Creek, Athens county. 



Pomeroy eoal, Pomeroy, Meigs eounty. 



