COAL-FIELDS OF OHIO. 



319 



tombed beneath thick strata of shale and sandstone, 

 until the whole series had accumulated to a depth * 

 of more than a thousand feet; while beneath the 

 whole lay the bed of an ancient ocean, floored with 

 fossil salt. Indications of coal are found at inter- 

 vals across the great valley from the Alleghany to 

 the Rocky Mountains. It is found near the surface 

 in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, 

 and, without doubt, may be found beneath the ex- 

 tensive tertiary deposites which form the substra- 

 tum of the great prairies in the central and northern 

 parts of the Western states. As low down as New- 

 Madrid, on the Mississippi, coal was thrown up from 

 beneath the bed of the river by the great earthquakes 

 of 1812 ; a sufficient proof of its continuation in the 

 most depressed part of the great valley." " Where 

 not removed by degradation or buried under other 

 strata, there seem to have been eight distinct de- 

 posites of coal throughout the main coal-region of 

 Ohio, some of which were covered with marine de- 

 posites ; in others the deposite was made in fresh 

 water, as is demonstrated by the character of the 

 fossil shells found in the rocks, both over and under 

 the coal." 



Coal-field of the Muskingum. — The Muskingum 

 River empties into the Ohio on the west, after trav- 

 ersing Muskingum, Morgan, and Washington coun- 

 ties, through a beautiful valley nearly 200 miles in 

 length, by from 50 to 100 or more in breadth. All 

 the northeast part of the valley, and the hilly sand- 

 stone region south and east between the Muskin- 

 gum and the Ohio, belong to the carboniferous group 

 and the coal measures ; and nearly all the streams 

 that flow into the Ohio, in some part of their course, 

 pass over deposites of bituminous coal ; while the 

 streams which run north into Lake Erie pass over 

 calcareous rocks, and lie without the margin of that 

 great coal-basin, through the most depending part 

 of which the Ohio takes its course. 



