GRAND    MESA   COAL   FIELD,    COLORADO.  329 
The  coal  is  black,  subbituminous,  with  fine  texture,  dull  luster, 
and  conchoidal  fracture,  and  slacks  when  exposed  to  the  weather. 
It  burns  readily,  making  a  good  domestic  fuel,  but  shows  little  ten- 
dency to  coke.  It  is  usually  free  from  foreign  matter,  although  in 
some  places  there  is  a  considerable  amount  of  bone.  The  coal  varies 
from  place  to  place  in  purity  and  in  the  thickness  and  number  of  the 
beds.  At  the  Kuhnley  mine  (No.  18)  the  bed  is  about  one- third 
bone;  at  the  Rollins  mine  (No.  19)  the  same  bed  contains  practi- 
cally no  bone.  For  several  miles  east  of  Surface  Creek  the  beds  are 
thin  and  few  in  number  and  the  coal  is  bony;  but  still  farther  east 
they  are  more  numerous  and  the  coal  improves  in  quality.  At  the 
Bennett  mine  (No.  30)  four  beds  of  workable  thickness  have  been 
prospected,  and  the  Newman  mine  (No.  31)  opened  on  one  of  the 
upper  beds  has  14  feet  of  clean  coal.  Several  other  mines  in  the 
district  have  equally  good  coal  in  beds  7  to  10  feet  thick. 
The  Rollins  mine  (No.  19)  is  the  only  one  in  the  district  equipped 
with  steam  power,  but  arrangements  have  been  made  for  installing 
machinery  at  the  Fairview  mine  (No.  20).  At  the  other  openings 
mining  is  done  by  hand.  The  inside  haulage  is  by  mules,  and  the 
coal  is  all  taken  to  market  in  wagons,  more  or  less  well  graded  roads 
having  been  constructed  to  the  mines  for  this  purpose. 
SOMERSET  DISTRICT. 
The  eastern  or  Somerset  district  includes  the  coal  east  of  Paonia. 
At  its  west  end  the  coal  crops  out  in  the  cliffs  about  1,000  feet  above 
North  Fork,  but  at  Somerset  it  is  at  river  level.  East  of  Minnesota 
Creek  it  underlies  the  mesa  and  crops  out  again  on  Coal  Creek,  which 
has  cut  its  canyon  down  to  the  coal-bearing  zone.  The  beds  are 
extensively  exposed  farther  south,  or  upstream  in  the  Coal  Creek 
canyon,  but  were  not  examined  south  of  the  Mosley  mine  (No.  49). 
Coal  occurs  in  both  the  Paonia  and  Bowie  shale  members  of  the 
Mesaverde  formation  in  the  Somerset  district,  as  shown  in  the  John- 
son section  (No.  47)  of  the  following  table.  The  upper  four  beds 
of  this  section  are  in  the  Paonia  member.  There  are  probably  other 
coal  beds  in  this  member,  but  none  have  been  opened  and  there  are 
few  natural  exposures,  the  coal  being  either  burned  on  the  outcrop  or 
covered  with  brush  and  surface  debris.  The  Bowie  shale  contains 
seven  beds  of  coal  that  have  been  prospected,  and  others  of  which 
little  is  known.  The  amount  of  clinker  and  ash  in  some  places  indi- 
cates the  existence  of  unknown  coal  beds  of  considerable  thickness. 
All  the  mines  and  nearly  all  the  prospects  of  the  Somerset  district 
are  in  the  coals  of  the  Bowie  shale,  or  marine  Mesaverde. 
The  coal  of  the  Somerset  district  is  more  abundant,  better  exposed, 
more  easily  accessible,  and  more  extensively  worked  than  that  of 
