108 IMPERIAL COAL WORKS OF LISSITCHIA-BALKA. 
seams of coal are known, but of these only three are now worked, viz. from four- 
teen inches to three feet thick each, the remainder being thin, impure and profit- 
less. These beds are subordinate to grits, schists and limestones, and among the 
fossils of the latter we perceived both the Spirifer Mosquensis and the Cheetetes 
radians, thus proving beyond a doubt that the coal is included in the central mem- 
ber of the carboniferous limestone, and superior to the rocks of the Lower Donetz 
and Krinka, and to the great limestone of Karakuba. The prevailing strike is east 
and by south, west and by north, and the dip is usually to the north and by east, 
at very high angles, viz. 50° to 60°. Some of the seams of coal thin out, when 
followed downwards to a depth of thirty fathoms, in the same way as has been 
observed in the coal-field of Coalbrook Dale, where such wedging-out is termed a 
“ Simon fault ” K In general the roofs of the coal are grits and sandstones, and 
their floors are composed of shale ; but in one instance the roof is a bed of Spirifer 
and Encrinite limestone, and in another a clunch or clay. Many plants occur, 
chiefly in the schist and clunch, and among them are numerous Ferns as well as 
Stigmatise. The coal of Uspensk being extracted on the sides of the hills high 
above the line of drainage of the country, no steam-engines have been yet em- 
ployed ; but when we were there, the difficulties having increased with the greater 
depth, a small twelve-horse power machine had been prepared to obviate them. This 
coal is somewhat of that mixed nature to which we have before alluded, being very 
far fiom a puie bituminous coal ; and although it gives little or no flame or smoke 
compared with that of Lissitchia-Balka (the great mine of the region), it is very 
useful in forging iron, and contains so much of bitumen as to set well and coagu- 
late when heated. 
The natural sections presented by the hills on the north of the Alkovaia, between 
Uspensk and Lugan, are singularly instructive in presenting a succession of highly 
inclined strata of the Carboniferous system, one of the depressions between the 
ridges being filled with a small basin of chalk which is unconformable, as ex- 
pressed in PI. I. fig. 10 ; and finally, the carboniferous sandstones subsiding in 
their progress to the north, are covered by the vast and thick development of chalk 
in which the Lugan iron-foundries are placed. 
1 See the memoir of Mr. Prestwich on the coal-field of Coalbrook Dale (Geol. Trans, vol. v. p. 413.), 
one of the most valuable pictures of the underground relations of a highly complicated coal-field which 
has ever been communicated to the public. A brief account of this field is also given in the “ Silurian 
System” of Mr. Murchison, p. 99. 
