316 COAL-FIELDS OF VIRGINIA. 
with beds of iron ore, which yield from 34 to 63 1-2 
per cent, of metallic iron.* 
Our limits do not allow us to enter upon a descrip- 
tion of the Maryland Coal-field, which lies west of 
the Back Bone or Alleghany Ridge ; suffice it to say, 
that it alone would supply this country with coal 
for a long succession of years. 
COAL-FIELDS OF VIRGINIA. 
The coal-fields of Virginia are numerous and ex- 
tensive, but a brief description must suffice. That 
which we would designate as the first coal-field, lies 
at the junction of the middle and tide-water section, 
extending from the Pamunky by Richmond to the 
Appomattox, a distance of about thirty-five miles, 
with a breadth of from one to eight miles. The 
coal is bituminous, in seams of enormous thickness, 
being sometimes thirty, forty, or even sixty feet 
thick, and of excellent quahty. Traces of coal 
have also been found on both sides of the Upper Ap- 
pomattox. The coal of the Richmond basin is now 
largely mined, and sent off in considerable quanti- 
ties. Anthracite of great purity is found in the val- 
ley from the Potomac to the James River, south of 
which it contains a considerable portion of bitumen, 
but less than that of the ordinary bituminous coal. 
Beyond the Alleghany there are some of the most 
extensive and valuable deposites of bituminous coal 
in the United States, which derive additional value 
from their being associated with not less important 
beds of iron and rich salines. At Wheeling, on 
the Ohio, and for fourteen miles down the river, 
the bank presents an uninterrupted bed of highly 
bituminous coal, upward of sixteen feet thick. 
The Wheeling basin extends about thirty miles up 
and down the river in Ohio and Virginia. Another 
vast field stretches from about Clarksburgh, on the 
* On the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 25 cwt. of the Howell 
j^psl performed the work of two tons of anthracite. 
