JACK COUNTY. 515 



GERTRUDE 



Near the town of Gertrude, at the forks of Cameron Creek, there are 

 several outcrops of the coal seam, all of them showing about the same thick- 

 ness of coal as at the former places described. In fact it is possible to trace 

 the seam by its outcrop from hill to hill for several miles. The dip of the 

 seam is about northwest, and the range of hills runs with the strike of the 

 strata, thereby exposing the coal all along their southeastern sides. Just be- 

 low the coal seam a bed of limestone occurs at this place. In the limestone 

 I found the following fossils: Spirifer earner atus, Productus punctatus, Athyris 

 subtilita, Fusulina cylindrica, Terebratula, Fennestella, and stems of Encrinites. 



About four miles from Gertrude, on the Graham road, near the corner of 

 Loving's pasture, I made the following section. Beginning at the bottom : 



1. Clay ... 4 feet. 



2. Coal lfoot. 



3. Clay 55 feet. 



4. Coal and bituminous shale 10 feet. 



5. Clay 12 feet. 



6. Sandstone 4 feet. 



7. Clay 8 feet. 



8. Coal 4 inches. 



9. Sandstone 4 feet. 



10. Clay 20 feet. 



11. Sandstone 6 feet. 



Total 124 feet 4 inches. 



Along the line of outcrop as I have described, it is possible to find the 

 same seam of coal at almost any place at the same geological height. The 

 seam will be higher on the hills east of any of the outcrops 1 have mentioned, 

 and lower on the hills west of the outcrops, as the dip of the stratum is to 

 the northwest. If coal should be found outcropping other than I have indi- 

 cated it would not be Seam No. 7, and as I think this to be the only seam 

 that is thick enough to be of any economic value in this county, it would be 

 useless to spend much money or time in prospecting on any other seam. If 

 another seam should be found that would give some promise of being thick 

 enough to work, a few feet of work would determine the matter. It is use- 

 less to follow a thin seam under a hill supposing it will thicken. Just as 

 soon as a tunnel is driven on a seam far enough to get away from the atmos- 

 pheric influences all the facts about the seam in that vicinity can be seen. At 

 some time when there shall be means of transportation there will be opened 

 and developed in this part of the county good and paying coal mines. For 

 the present nothing can be done for want of transportation. 



