LAWRENCE COUNTY. 43 



Just north of the county line iu the edge of Crawford couuty, at Mr. 

 Nettle's coal mine, the coal is about 18 iuches thick, overlaid by 

 about a foot or more of hard bitutniuous shale resembling a cannel coal. 

 It has been miued here for several years at intervals, by tunneling into 

 the bank along the line of outcrop, but no permanent entry was con- 

 structed, and when the work stopped the roof caved in and filled the 

 opening so that a new entry was required as often as the work was 

 resumed. 



This was the condition of things when I was there, and I was unable 

 to make any satisfactory examination of the quality of the coal, or to 

 determine its exact thickness. 



The main coals of the lower measures which are so extensively mined 

 in Gallatin and Saline counties will probably be found here by boring, 

 and if the well bored at Lawrenceville had been in the hands of an 

 expert, and an exact record kept of the thickness and composition of 

 the various beds passed through, the question would have been settled 

 ■whether there was any thick seam of coal within four hundred feet of 

 the surface in this county. As it is, nothing has been positively determ- 

 ined by this expenditure of money, further than the fact that two coal 

 seams of uncertain thickness were found in the boring, one at a depth 

 of about 340 and the other at 440 feet below the surface. The depth 

 of the seam, when not exceeding four or five hundred feet, is no serious 

 impediment to the working of the coal, if the demand for this kind of 

 fuel is sufficient to justify the investment, and we already have several 

 shafts in successful operation in the State that are over 500 feet in 

 depth. Deep mining is the only alternative in this county for obtaining 

 an unfailing supply of this kind of fuel, as the surface seams appear to 

 be too thin at every outcrop at present known in this or the adjoining 

 counties to be successfully worked for the supply of any large demand 

 for coal. 



Iron ore. — The shales intervening between coals 11 and 12 contain 

 numerous bands of argillaceous iron ore, but they are too widely sepa- 

 rated at the localities where the shales were met with in this county to 

 be of any practical value for the furnace. At the base of the upper 

 sandstone a ferruginous bed is frequently met with, sometimes appearing 

 as a conglomerate of iron nodules in sandstone; but in Mr. Feitohey's 

 well, on sec. 25, T. 5 1ST., R. 12 W., it was reported to be two feet thick, 

 and consisted partly of a very good quality of brown hematite ore, but 

 other portions were too much mixed with sand to be of any value for 

 the production of metallic iron. It was found in the well at a depth of 

 16 feet, and outcrops about a quarter of a mile to the westward, where 

 its thickness is only about six inches. 



Soil and Timber. — The Wabash and Embarras rivers are skirted with 

 broad alluvial bottoms and level table lauds, ranging from two to four 



