326 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



was started oil the bench above and carried down through the over- 

 lying lire-clays aud sandstone to the coal, when it followed the regular 

 slope of the bed. A steam-engine is employed to hoist the coal and the 

 water. The bed is four and a half to five feet thick, dips east into the 

 hill, and produces a coal very different in appearance from that of 

 the other mines. A part of it is a dull jet-black, hard and brittle, break- 

 ing in cuboidal fragments ; and streaks of this cannel-like character are 

 seen in the more brilliant varieties that are also found. Iron pyrites in 

 extremely thin disks and resin also are noticed in the coal. 



Two or three other small beds of coal appear in the bank of the creek, 

 and in the slates or shales over them are courses of kidney iron ore that 

 may possibly prove sufficient for the support of a blast furnace. 



Other coal-beds will doubtless be opened in this region, and also far- 

 ther back toward the other mines. The only one discovered the last 

 season was by Mr. Davidson, in exploring the strata near the highest 

 elevation of the country, probably far above the great coal-bed. It proved 

 to be a bed about three and a half feet thick. 



Wyoming Territory. — Although the coal-belt of Colorado extends north 

 into Wyoming Territory, and indications of coal have been found near 

 the line of the Union Pacific Eailroad, it has nowhere been found pro- 

 ductive of good coal to the east of the Black Hills. Beyond this range 

 of mountains, in the Laramie Valley, the same formation 'is again met 

 with, and valuable mines of coal are worked at intervals near the road 

 even to Salt Lake Valley. 



Carbon. — The first of these is at Carbon, a station one hundred and 

 forty miles by the road from Cheyenne, which is at the east foot of the 

 Black Hills. Here, by the side of the track, a large shaft has been sunk 

 seventy feet deep down to a coal bed seven feet thick ; a steam-engine 

 for pumping and hoisting is in operation, and all the appliances are pro- 

 vided in the way of good machinery and buildings of a first-class col- 

 liery. A considerable proportion of the coal used on the railroad is here 

 obtained; and it is transported for sale to Omaha, five hundred and 

 fifty-six miles by railroad, and to Denver, two hundred and fifty miles. 

 The coal is iu fair repute, though it makes some clinker, and the analysis 

 shows it has more mineral impurity than the other coals. This comes 

 in part from small seams of slate in the bed, and also from a coating of 

 a white powder observed in the seams of the coal, which proves to be 

 carbonate with a little sulphate of lime. If it contains more ash, it is, 

 on the other hand, comparatively free from water, showing the least 

 percentage of this of any coal analyzed. The smoke of this coal is black, 

 like that of the bituminous coals. 



HallviUe. — The next mining establishment is at Hallville, one hundred 

 and forty-two miles farther west. Several coal-beds' (probably four) are 

 here found in a hill about three hundred yards south from the railroad, 

 and a side track leads from this to the mine. The main bed of coal is 

 from five and a half to six feet thick; and below it is another bed three 

 feet thick, which in one place comes within a foot of it, and in others is 

 separated from it by several feet of slates. Other irregularities of 

 stratification are noticed in the main coal-bed itself, which near the 

 entrance of the mine has in the lower half some small seams of slate, 

 and near the roof a layer of " bony," inferior coal, eight inches thick, 

 none of which are found in the inner or extreme part of the workings. 

 The coal itself is hard and solid, and burns with a white smoke and little 

 odor. The mine is worked without trouble from water, and the coal is 

 drawn out on an iron track by mules. 



The black slate roof of the main bed abounds in fossil remains of fresh- 



