322 COAL-FIELDS OF KENTUCKY. 



ing of iron. This coal has been worked in various 

 places, and is now delivered at Chilicothe at 16 

 cents a bushel, of which many thousand bushels 

 are annually consumed. 



The thickness of these three beds of coal ranges 

 from 10 to 17 feet. " The whole amount of coal," 

 says Mr. Briggs, " between the Ohio River and the 

 Hocking Valley, may be safely estimated as suffi- 

 cient to form an entire stratum 50 miles in length, 

 five miles in width, and nine feet in thickness. This 

 amount of coal will yield about 9,000,000 of tons 

 per square mile. This estimate includes but a very 

 small part of the coal which can be obtained from 

 the beds heretofore described ; for, after disappear- 

 ing beneath the water-courses, they doubtless con- 

 tinue eastward towards the Ohio River, sinking 

 deeper and deeper beneath the surface, so that they 

 can be reached only by shafts near the Ohio at the 

 depth of some hundred feet. The method of ob- 

 taining coal by sinking shafts has not yet been 

 practised in this country to any considerable ex- 

 tent, but will ultimately be in Ohio, when the con- 

 sumption of fossil coal shall have created a suffi- 

 cient demand for the article. Shafts have been 

 sunk with success, under the direction of practical 

 geologists in Great Britain, to the depth of 1200 to 

 1500 feet. Coal must undoubtedly be obtained in 

 this way in our own country at no very remote pe- 

 riod."* 



COAL-FIELDS IN KENTUCKY. 



Extensive beds of coal are found along the base 

 of the Cumberland Mountains, stretching along 120 

 miles west of them, in the heads of Licking, Ken- 

 tucky, Green, and Cumberland rivers. Throughout 

 this region, embracing the sides and spurs of Cum- 

 berland Mountains, the prevailing rock is sand- 

 stone ; on its western limit it changes to limestone, 



* Report to the Legislature of Ohio, 1838, p. 87. 



