l»LUER.l COAL OF CAPE LISBURNE REGION. 17 ( .) 
from the top down is as follows: Clean coal, 1 foot; black shale, 1 
lfoot; clean coal, 4 feet. The coal from the upper and lower benches 
ts about alike. The roof of this bed is H feet of black shale, and 
kbove this lies shaly sandstone. The floor of the bed is black shale 2 
ieet thick, below which is 1 foot of impure limestone. This bed has 
been partially opened at the top of the cliff, which is about 100 feet 
high. It has yielded to whaling ships some coal that is said to have 
been of good quality. The face of the cliff up to a height of 75 feet 
ibove the sea was covered in July and August, 1904, with snow and 
ce, the remnant of snowdrifts accumulated the winter before. 
Thetis group . — The coal beds of the Thetis group outcrop along the 
coast 6 miles east of Corwin Bluff near a sandstone cliff about 30 feet 
high, the seaward end of a low ridge which continues inland in a south- 
east direction. This cliff is about ±\ miles west of Cape Sabine and 2 
miles east of the mouth of Thetis Creek. The strike here is N. 60° 
W. and the dip about 20° toward the southwest. The coal beds are 
stratigraphically about 8,000 feet below the lowest bed of the Corwin 
group. The intervening shales and sandstones carry some scattering- 
coal beds, but none that are known to be of economic importance. 
The coal is reported to have been first worked by a whaleman, who 
found all the accessible beds at Corwin Bluff already occupied by the 
crews of other ships and was directed to this place by natives. The 
U. S. revenue cutter Thetis coaled here in 1888. It is reported that 
when the coal was discovered a large outcrop extended across the 
beach standing above the sand and that a considerable amount was 
easily obtained. In 1904 extensive snowdrifts covered the beaches 
and the cliff face, so that no bed was seen outcropping on the beach. 
The original Thetis vein, which was worked in 1888, probably over- 
lies the massive sandstone which forms the cliff noted. Croppings 
on the level ground above the bluff indicate two coal beds of con- 
siderable thickness, with 15 or 20 feet of shale between. Reports of 
the workings indicate that the vein has a thickness not less than 6 feet. 
In about 700 feet of dark shales, underlying the sandstone bed, 10 coal 
beds were noted, only 2 of which are of possible economic value. The 
first of these is about 250 feet below the Thetis bed and outcrops about 
100 feet east of the high sandstone cliff. It contains 4 feet of clean 
coal without partings. The second is about 200 feet lower in the 
stratigraphic column and outcrops about 600 feet farther east. It 
contains 3 feet of clean coal without partings. 
Beds helow the Thetis (/roup. — Below the beds of the Thetis group 
there are 3,000 feet of shales and sandstones in which several coal 
beds have been noted, but none of commercial value. 
East of Cape Sabine. — East of Cape Sabine the structure probably 
causes a repetition of the beds described above, but the work has not 
been sufficiently detailed to identify them. The coal-bearing forma- 
