WILLIAMSON COUNTY. 119 



face. The seam is here from eight to nine and a half feet thick of clean, 

 bright, glistening coal, presenting the finest appearance to the casual 

 visitor of any mine we have visited in the State. The roof consists of 

 about fifteen feet of blue shale slightly bituminous at the bottom, and 

 showing the remains of numerous fossil plants where the coal has been 

 removed. This coal is quite free from pyrite, cokes well, and the pro- 

 duct finds a ready market at the Iron Furnaces at Grand Tower. The 

 same parting of bituminous shale noticed at Spiller's may be seen here. 

 It is about an inch in thickness and some two feet above the bottom of 

 the coal, and there are some other leaf like partings that divide the 

 seam into regular layers. The dip at this mine is said to be about two 

 inches to the yard in a north-westerly direction, but this is probably 

 local. About half a mile north-east of the opening this seam crops out 

 in the bottom of a ravine, where the coal is much less than its average 

 thickness and is underlaid by two feet of fire clay and a nodular gray 

 limestone which weathers to a yellowish-buff color, and is from eighteen 

 inches to two feet thick. The seam was first opened in this raviue, and 

 considerable coal taken out by tunnelling iuto the side of the hill. 



At Crane station, a half mile east of Carterville, a shaft was sunk to 

 the depth of about forty feet to a seam of coal three feet eight inches 

 thick, overlaid by a heavy bed of bituminous shale. Operations had 

 been suspended here when I visited this locality, and the shaft was par- 

 tially filled with water, so that no satisfactory examination could be 

 made except from the material thrown out. The coal is said to beqnite 

 different from that obtained at Carterville, being harder and continuing 

 more pyrite. The coal is overlaid by a heavy bed of bituminous shale, 

 with concretions of dark pyritif'erous limestone, and nodular masses of 

 bluish-gray limestone resembling those occurring over Eusminger'scoal 

 south-east of Crab Orchard. If the dip determined in the mine at Car- 

 terville is continuous over any considerable area, that seam would be 

 thrown out here, and I am of the opinion that this is the case, and that 

 the coal at this station is No. 5, though it is somewhat thinner here than 

 at Ensmiuger's, and from some local cause contains a greater amount of 

 pyrite. In the roof shales thrown out at the air shaft we found several 

 species of fossils, among which we recognized Chonetes mesoloba, Pro- 

 ductus hngkpinus, P. Prattenianus, Athyris subtilita, Spirifer cameratus, 

 8. lineatus and joints of Crinoidea. 



From what Las already been said in regard to the development of the 

 lower coals in this county, and from the sections given on the preceding 

 pages, it will be seen that the main coals from No. 2 to No. 7 inclusive are 

 found on the eastern borders of the county, and all but No. 4 distinctly 

 recognized and examined. It is probable however that there is a 

 gradual thinning out of these lower measures to the westward, and it is 



