COAL-FIELDS OF UNITED STATES. 303 



are those of Nova Scotia. These afford a bitumi- 

 nous coal of good quality, and are situated in the 

 regular coal measures. The quantity, of course, is 

 very great, if not inexhaustible. 



Rhode Island Coal-fields. — These, though not 

 extensive, are still worthy of notice. Those which 

 have been explored are situated chiefly in Ports- 

 mouth, near the northern extremity of the state, 

 and are contained in graywacke slate, and, conse- 

 quently, are not in the regular measures. They be- 

 gan to be worked about the beginning of the pres- 

 ent century, when the bed wrought was fourteen 

 feet wide. Six of these beds have been wrought, 

 and more than thirty are said to exist in the vicin- 

 ity. In 1820, fifteen men only were employed, who 

 raised from ten to twenty chaldrons of coal per day, 

 besides keeping the mine free from water. The 

 bed is not horizontal, but forms an angle of about 

 seventy-five degrees. In the year 1827, twenty men 

 and five boys raised 2200 tons of coal, and an equal 

 quantity of slack, which is very small coal and dust, 

 and the coal sold at the mine for four dollars and 

 fifty cents per ton, which v;^as used for burning 

 lime and bricks. Professor Hitchcock considers 

 that the slate in which the coal occurs is closely 

 allied to primary rocks, because it contains as- 

 bestos. 



Massachusetts Coal-fields. — -We have already 

 alluded to the anthracite coal of Worcester, which 

 occurs in mica slate. This is about seven feet thick ; 

 but as it has been explored but a few^ feet, and the 

 operations are now suspended, we shall pass it by 

 without farther remark. 



Mansfield. — In the year 1835, explorations were 

 commenced by the Massachusetts Mining Company, 

 in the town of Mansfield, where a shaft was sunk in 

 graywacke, and at a depth of 25 feet struck a bed ol 

 coal five feet thick, and another one foot thick, sep- 

 arated from the first by 10 inches of rock. Previous 



