COAL NEAR ZUNI—COAL FROM PUGET’S SOUND. 
89 
of the line, and on the eastern flank of the Santa Fe mountains, being in the line with the uplift 
of the Sandia range ; from this circumstance they would naturally be regarded as of carbonifer¬ 
ous age, and yet we find by the evidence of fossil plants that the coal is much more modern. 
This fact was established by the fossils brought in by Lieutenant J. W. Abert, which were 
submitted to Professor J. W. Bailey. 1 Very little is yet known respecting the extent and 
value of this deposite of coal. 
Ojo Pescado .—The deposite of coal at Ojo Pescado is about forty miles west of the pass in the 
Sierra Madre, and near the ruined Pueblo of Zuni. It occurs, according to the description of 
Mr. Marcou, in layers from six inches to one foot in thickness, intercalated with bituminous 
shales. It is overlaid by thick beds of sandstone, and the whole is nearly horizontal, the upper 
strata dipping westward at an angle of about ten degrees. The only specimen of coal in the 
collection, No. 98 of the catalogue, is from this locality. A description of this sample is given 
in detail in Chapter X. 
It very much resembles the Tertiary brown coals, or lignites, found on the western coasts, but 
is not so compact or of a quality at all comparable to the best coal of Puget’s sound. The streak 
or powder is dark brown, and on the flat cleavage surfaces some impressions of vegetation may be 
seen. The coal gives off a strong odor of bitumen when it is heated, and it burns with a white 
flame and little smoke until the flame ceases, when the smoke is white and like that from wood. 
The quantity of ash which it leaves, together with the large quantity of impurities contained 
in the mass, lead me to conclude that the coal is of little or no value for furnaces. The thinness 
of the beds is such, also, that it cannot be profitably obtained. It is not impossible, however, 
that thicker beds occur, and that the specimen does not exhibit the best part of the deposite. 
The deposites of coal along the Puerco, and particularly at Las Lunas, have been described. At 
the latter place it is used by the blacksmith. Coal also occurs at Ciboleta, and Lieutenant 
Simpson mentions the occurrence of bituminous coal near the parallel of 36°, in or near the 
Canon de Cliaco , almost due north of Sierra de San Mateo, or Mount Taylor. It appears in 
the side of a table-mound interstratified horizontally between sandstone strata. Gypsum, inter¬ 
calated with argillaceous shales, was found overlying it. 2 
It is very probable that all these deposites of coal are of one era, and yet the indications pre¬ 
sented by the position and lithological association of the coal at Ojo Pescado are such as favor 
the belief in its carboniferous age. The quality of the coal at all of these localities is probably 
inferior, and its quantity is not very great. 
From the thin bed of coal at Ojo Pescado westward to the end of the line at San Pedro, 
there does not appear to have been any indication of coal. It is not found in connexion with 
the carboniferous strata, and has either been denuded and washed away, or it was never formed 
over those regions. This is probably the fact, for the rocks themselves show a decreasing thick¬ 
ness towards the west, and the shales do not appear. There is little reason to expect to find 
valuable deposites of coal, near the line, west of Delaware mountain. 
Coal of Puget’s sound, Bellingham hay .—The accessibility of the vast deposites of coal along 
the shores of Puget’s sound to San Pedro, renders them a proper subject for consideration in this 
place. It is most probable that the Pacific coast will be largely supplied with this coal at a 
price which will lead to its use in preference to that from the Atlantic States, which, by reason 
of distance, must ever continue to bear a high price on the Pacific. Cargoes of the coal have 
already been mined and sent to San Francisco, where it is used with great satisfaction by 
families and for burning in grates. It very much resembles the ordinary bituminous coal of 
the West, being in large brilliant black masses, which break up readily, with curved surfaces, 
but generally cleaving into tabular blocks in the direction of the layers. It burns freely, and 
leaves a fine white ash, which is probably more abundant than in the coal of carboniferous age. 
The coal was once tried on the United States Coast Survey steamer, the Active, during a trip 
1 Report of an Examination of New Mexico, p. 547, and two plates. 
2 Simpson’s Report, p. 73. 
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