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of coal within its limits. Many people are evidently of 

 opinion that coal ought to be found here, because it is found 

 in adjoining counties. Others are of the opinion that the 

 hills of Perry county must contain coal or some other min- 

 eral because they are good for little or nothing else. 



As to the first argument, I may say that it is quite worth- 

 less, unless regard is paid to the position and arrangement 

 of the strata, A miner of gold, silver, lead, or of any other 

 metal that occurs in veins, may have ground for believing 

 that the same lode which traverses his neighbor's land must 

 also traverse his own, if it lies in the direction of the lode. 

 But the miner of coal and iron, or of any mineral deposit- 

 ed in beds, has no right to anticipate a similar result 

 unless the strata be horizontal, or nearly so. I need hardly, 

 therefore, say that the argument is worth nothing in Perry 

 and adjoining counties where it would be difficult to find a 

 square mile of horizontal strata. 



In reply to the second argument, I see no reason for 

 believing that mountains must yield valuable minerals 

 because they are good for nothing else. They may be 

 good for something of which the miner has no conception — 

 scenery, for example. Many of the mountains of the globe 

 have no other value than this. They are safe from the in- 

 trusion of cultivation, and in years to come they may be 

 the only parts of the world that are so. It is some pleasure 

 to feel that there are places where Nature will probably re- 

 main forever supreme, the solitude never be broken by 

 traffic and commerce, and the soil continue unprofaned by 

 the plow and the harrow. And mountains preserve forests, 

 and influence the climate. 



My answer to the questionhas usually been this : " If by 

 coal is meant merely samples of coal, there are enongh in 

 Perry county ; but if workable, proli table coal seams are 

 meant, then there is none." 



The oldest rocks in Perry county lie in the Horse valley, 

 and consist of dark, almost black shales. They have natur- 

 ally produced the impression that coal might be found there, 

 and Mr. J. Hockenberry showed me a place from which he 

 had taken some. But it was only a very thin seam of in- 



