PROGRESS  OF  COAL  WORK  IN  INDIAN  TERRITORY. 
By  Joseph  A.  Taff. 
GENERAL  RELATIONS  OF  THE  COAL  DEPOSITS. 
Rocks  in  which  coal  may  be  found  in  Indian  Territory  have  an 
area  of  approximately  20,000  square  miles.  In  this  report,  however, 
only  those  parts  will  be  considered  which  have  been  investigated  and 
are  known  to  contain  beds  of  workable  coal.  Where  coal  beds  are 
known  to  be  commercially  valuable  and  have  been  accurately  located 
the  outcrops  are  marked  in  solid  heavy  lines  on  the  map  (PI.  I).  In 
case  of  question  as  to  thickness  or  accuracy  in  location,  the  outcrop  is 
shown  in  short  dash  lines. 
The  coal  in  the  eastern  part  of  Indian  Territory  is  a  continuation 
of  the  deposits  mined  in  Arkansas.     The  workable  coal  beds  in  the 
northern  part  of  Indian  Territory  are  stratigraphically  above  those  i 
in  the  southern  part,  but  they  occupy  similar  positions  in  the  section 
and  are  probably  the  same  as  some  of  those  in  the  Kansas  field. 
PREVIOUS  WORK. 
The  first  record  of  scientific  investigation  of  coal  in  Indian  Terri-j 
tory  was  published  in  1800  by  Dr.  H.  M.  Chance."     In  the  interest  of 
the  Choctaw  Coal  and  Railway  Company,  now  the  Choctaw,  Okla- 
homa and  Gulf  Railroad  Company,  certain  of  the  coal  beds  were 
traced  from  the  vicinity  of  Poteau  Mountain,  near  the  Arkansas  linej 
to  McAlester,  on  the  Missouri,  Kansas  and  Texas  Railroad. 
Beginning,  in  1897,  in  the  western  part  of  the  Choctaw  Nation,  the 
United  States  Geological  Survey  has  carried  on  detailed  investiga- 
tions and  has  completed  the  entire  area  of  coal-bearing  rocks  of  the 
Choctaw  and  Chickasaw  nations  and  that  part  of  the  Cherokee  and 
Creek  nations  south  of  Wagoner.  Outlying  areas,  also,  in  the  Creek] 
and  southern  Cherokee  nations,  have  been  investigated  where  the  coal 
lias  been  mined  commercially.     As  the  surveys  progressed,  prelimi- 
°  Proc.  Am.  Inst.  Min.  Eng.,  1890. 
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