304  CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    ECONOMIC    GEOLOGY,   1905. 
Feet. 
Shales,  reddish,  yellow,  purple,  and  greenish 12 
Dark-brown  sandstone  alternating  with  greenish-blue  shale;  concretions 25 
Greenish-blue  clay  with  small  iron  concretions 20 
Coal,  1  foot  on  1  foot  of  dark  shale 2 
Coal 3 
Greenish-blue  shale  with  large  sandstone  concretions 20 
Brownish  shale  with  leaf  impressions  on  8-inch  sandstone  bed 7 
Coal,  poor  quality 6 
Gray  sandstone 4 
Shale  and  coal ~ 6 
Greenish-blue  shale  with  coaly  layers 10 
Sandstone $ 
Coal,  main  bed  at  tunnel 7 
Concealed 100 
Coal  at  bottom  of  shaft 10 
260£ 
The  7-foot  bed  of  coal  has  been  extensively  mined.  The  overlying  layer  of  hard  sand- 
stone thins  out  about  half  a  mile  back  in  the  mines  and  the  two  coal  beds  unite.  The  coal 
is  of  good  quality  for  lignite,  but  slacks  easily  on  exposure  to  the  air.  It  is  used  on  one  sec- 
tion of  the  Burlington  Railroad,  about  thirty  locomotives  having  been  specially  modified 
for  burning  it.  Besides  supplying  (he  railroad,  the  coal  is  shipped  to  local  dealers  in  both 
the  East  and  the  West,  especially  at  points  in  eastern  Wyoming  and  Montana.  It  supplies 
some  coal  to  the  city  of  Sheridan,  but  the  greater  part  of  the  coal  used  by  the  citizens  of  that 
place  is  furnished  by  other  mines  along  Big  Goose  and  Beaver  creeks. 
The  Dietz  tunnel  has  been  worked  back  into  the  hills  about  l\  miles.  It  rises  with  a 
slight  incline  for  a  short  distance  and  then  runs  nearly  on  a  level  only  a  few  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  ground.  There  are  several  side  entries  to  the  main  tunnel  which  lead  into 
rooms.  The  mine  is  kept  well  timbered,  and  as  fast  as  the  rooms  are  worked  out  the  timbers 
are  removed  and  the  walls  allowed  to  cave  in.  In  1902  a  shaft  was  sunk  150  feet  deep 
about  half  a  mile  northeast  of  the  old  tunnel.  In  t  his  shaft  the  7-foot  seam  mined  in  the  old 
tunnel  was  penetrated  at  a  depth  of  40  feet,  and  a  second  bed  10  feet  thick  at  a  depth  of  140 
feet.  This  lower  bed  contains  a  coal  that  is  harder  aid,  as  regarded  by  the  miners,  of  better 
quality  than  that  found  in  the  old  tunnel.  It  does  not  air  slack  easily  and,  according  to 
tests  made,  is  a  good  quality  of  steam  coal.  From  the  bottom  of  this  shaft  a  main  entry  10 
feet  deep  runs  over  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  a  northeasterly  direction,  with  side  entries  in  proc- 
ess of  construction.  This  shaft  is  equipped  with  a  modern  derrick,  new  engines  for  hoist- 
ing, and  an  elevator  for  loading  coal  on  the  railroad  cars.  The  output  of  the  Dietz  Company 
is  said  to  be  50  cars  a  day  during  the  busy  season,  and  the  coal  sells  at  the  rate  of  $2  a  ton. 
On  Owl  Creek  and  the  divide  to  the  north  the  coal  measures  contain  a  coal  deposit  18  feet 
thick,  which  is  extensively  mined.  The  coal  outcrops  across  the  divide  toward  Soldiers 
Creek,  but  appears  to  thin  out  rapidly  in  that  direction,  being  only  6  feet  thick  in  an  aban- 
doned mine  on  the  north  slope.  To  the  south  the  coal  outcrop  encircles  the  hill  lying 
between  the  mouths  of  Owl  and  Big  Goose  creeks,  and  is  opened  extensively  at  the  Big 
Goose  coal  mine,  on  the  east  side  of  the  hill.  The  bed  here  is  14  feet  thick,  but  at  Nelson 
Brothers'  mine,  2\  miles  farther  southeast,  on  the  east  side  of  Beaver  Valley,  it  thickens  to 
21  feet  of  pure  coal.  The  strike  of  the  beds  is  northwest  and  southeast  in  this  region  and 
the  dip  about  4°.  The  coal  thins  in  every  direction  from  the  Nelson  mine.  The  overlying 
beds  exposed  at  intervals  down  Goose  Creek  are  soft  sandstones  and  shales  with  coaly 
layers. 
The  coal  mines  on  Owl  Creek,  2  miles  northeast  of  Beckton,  are  owned  and  operated  by 
Mr.  R.  S.  Addleman.  They  were  opened  in  1897.  The  main  tunnel  is  800  feet  long  and 
runs  from  northeast  to  southwest,  or  nearly  at  right  angles  to  the  dip,  which  is  about  4°  NE. 
In  1902  there  were  12  rooms  200  feel  long,  18  feet  wide,  and  7  feet  high.  The  coal  deposit  is 
18  feet  thick  in  its  thickest  portion,  and  12  feet  of  this  is  good  coal,  but  only  7  feet  near 
