COAL FIELDS. 269 



coal. Our coal will never be properly mined or properly burned so long 

 as it costs at the mines less than $1.00 per ton. This question of waste 

 demands immediate and serious consideration. The present status of 

 coal mining in Ohio is a reproach to the commonwealth, but like condi- 

 tions prevail in all the other portions of our coal fields, and a reform 

 cannot be accomplished in one State or district without the co-operation 

 of the rest. 



Divisions of the Ohio Coaf Fiffd. 



The number of fairly persistent coal seams that justify mining in 

 the large or small way in this State at the present time is not less than 

 15. By the most liberal construction, 18 such seams might be counted. 

 Of the really important seams there are not more than 10. 



Before making out the list, the principles on which our coal seams 

 are named, will be indicated. The laws of geological nomenclaturs 

 require that any regular element of the scale shall be known, wherever 

 it is found, by the name by which it was first adequately described. 

 The Pennsylvania coal fields were developed considerably in advance of 

 those in Ohio, and consequently all the principal seams were found to be 

 provided with names when first recognized within our territory. These 

 names we were obliged to adopt, even though the Ohio representatives 

 of particular seams might be more valuable than those found in Penn- 

 sylvania. There are a few seams found in Ohio, the equivalence of 

 which with Pennsylvania coals has not been fully demonstrated. For 

 such seams we must use names derived from the Ohio localities in which 

 they occur. In the lists which follow hereafter both the Pennsylvania 

 names and the Ohio equivalents, so far as they have been determined 

 will be presented. 



In his original classification of the Pennsylvania coal seams, Pro- 

 fessor Lesley adopted the letters of the alphabet for the designations, 

 A being applied to the lowest seam of the lower coal measures; in like 

 manner, Professor Newberry, in his classification of the Ohio coals, 

 applied numbers to the seams, using 1 for the lowest seam of the con- 

 glomerate coal measure, but supposing it to be the same as coal A of 

 Lesley. It so happened that the numbers were fixed to the coals of the 

 Ohio scale before the facts as to the series were adequately collected and 

 consequently their use has brought great confusion and trouble into our 

 system. Valuable seams were left without a number and again the same 

 number was given to different seams and one and the same seam received 

 different numbers in different localities. Numbers are easily remembered 

 and prove very popular with the practical part of our population that is 

 chiefly concerned with the coal fields, and it cannot be denied that if 

 the facts were all in hand, there would be comparatively little objection 

 to the application of such designations. But even in such a case, con- 

 fusion would sometimes result from the failure of one or more seams to 



