SALINE COUNTY. 225 



ridge bearing a little east of south from Equality. The mouth of the 

 mining entry is twenty feet above high-water of the Saline river ; and 

 as the same bed was passed through at forty feet below the surface in 

 the salt well oue mile directly east of this entry, it shows the dip to be 

 to the east at the rate of seventy feet per mile, if an allowance of ten 

 feet is made for the place of high-water mark above the salt well. The 

 following section was made at this mine, starting from high-water of 

 the Saline river. 



Section at Messrs. Temple & Castles' coal mine on sec. 24, T. 9, K. 7. 

 Coal dips east at the rate of seventy feet per mile : 



Ft. In. 



Slope covered with drift 60 



Grayish- white micaceous sandstone 30 



Gray siliceous shale 25 to 35 



Black slate 2 



Coal No. 5 ("five-foot coal,") '. 4 8 



Fireclay 2? 



Covered elope 18 



High water of the Saline river 



151 8 



About 300 bushels of this coal are consumed daily at the salt works, 

 under the evaporating pans and boilers. It appears here to be free 

 from the sulphur bands so common in coal No. 5 at Equality and other 

 localities, consequently it has acquired a high reputation for smithing 

 purposes. There is in the roof shales an abundance of compressed 

 marine shells coated with yellow pyrites of iron, which gives them the 

 appearance of having been gilded. They are, however, for the most 

 part in a bad state of preservation, and rapidly decompose after expo- 

 sure to the atmosphere. The shells most common in this shale are : 

 Aviculovecten rectilaterarius, Productus longispinus, Nautilus decoratus, 

 Nucula ventricosa ? and Orthoceras Rushensis. 



There is an outcrop of coal dirt on the side of the ridge opposite to 

 the above mine on sec. 25, T. 9, R. 7, that is referable, also, to coal No. 5. 

 No opening has been made to test the thickness and quality of the coal 

 at this outcrop, but it is my opinion that No. 5 coal will be found thin- 

 ning out to the south-west and west, and will in the latter direction 

 almost, if not entirely, give out after passing west of the third tier of 

 sections in range seven ; and in the former direction it is represented in 

 the vicinity of Whitesville by only an eighteen-inch seam. 



At the outcrop on sec. 25 it is underlaid by several feet of fire-clay, 

 which contains bands of gray ironstone of a character similar to that 

 which is seen under the coal at the salt works, only it appears to be in 

 much larger quantity at the former place. 



At the crossing of Saline river, on sec. 26, T. 9, E. 7, the gray silicious 

 shales, commonly over No. 5 coal in this part of the coal field, outcrop 



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