340  CONTRIBUTIONS    TO    ECONOMIC    GEOLOGY,   1903.  [bull.  225. 
About  a  mile  farther  south  an  opening  has  been  made  which  shows 
about  37  inches  of  coal  badly  crushed  and  greatly  weathered.  The  bed 
seems  originally  to  have  included  two  shale  partings,  which  are  now 
crushed  and  thrust  out  of  position  in  the  mass  of  the  coal. 
Several  prospect  pits  have  been  dug  near  the  Meadows  road  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  basin,  but  they  are  in  such  a  condition  that  it  is 
impossible  to  obtain  any  idea  of  the  coal.  According  to  Mr.  Hunter, 
two  benches  of  coal  were  exposed,  one  showing  a  thickness  of  3£  feet 
and  the  other  a  thickness  of  2  feet. 
Still  farther  south  and  near  the  mouth  of  Roaring  Run  a  large 
amount  of  coal  was  mined  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago.  No  reli- 
able data  has  been  preserved  regarding  it,  but  it  seems  probable  that 
a  bed  of  good  workable  thickness  was  found  in  this  locality.  The  coal 
is  exposed  on  the  crest  of  a  small  anticlinal  roil  in  the  bottom  of  the 
basin,  and  according  to  report  the  coal  lay  in  a  pocket  and  soon  was 
worked  out. 
Prospecting  has  been  done  along  the  southeastern  limb  of  the 
syncline  on  a  coal  bed  which  appears  to  lie  considerably  below  the 
main  sandstone  that  forms  Third  Hill  and  Short  mountains.  A  shaft 
was  sunk  to  this  bed  on  the  extreme  northern  point  of  Short  Moun- 
tain and  some  coal  was  obtained,  but  the  thickness  of  the  bed  is 
unknown,  as  the  shaft  is  full  of  water  and  the  coal  is  not  visible.  A 
more  promising  opening  was  made  on  the  east  face  of  Third  Hill 
Mountain  about  one  mile  north  of  the  Meadows  road.  An  entry  was 
driven  in  and  considerable  coal  was  removed.  The  parties  doing  the 
work  seem  to  have  been  satisfied  with  what  they  found,  and  the  mouth 
of  the  drift  was  closed  so  that  no  information  could  be  made  public 
concerning  it. 
QUALITY    OF    THE    COAL. 
At  only  one  place,  the  Chappelle  shaft,  could  the  quality  of  the  coal 
of  the  Meadow  Creek  basin  be  determined.  Here  it  is  exposed  for 
inspection  in  a  shaft  60  to  70  feet  deep,  but  at  other  places  all  that 
can  be  seen  are  heaps  of  fine  coal  that  have  lain  exposed  to  the  weather 
for  an  unknown  lengfth  of  time. 
The  fragments  probably  represent  the  better  part  of  the  coal,  and, 
as  indicated  by  one  analysis,  they  show  little  evidence  of  disintegra- 
tion. The  coal  fragments  seem  to  be  about  the  same  in  quality  as  the 
best  grade  from  the  Chappelle  shaft. 
The  middle  bench  only  of  the  coal  in  the  Chappelle  shaft  is  acces- 
sible at  this  mine.  In  order  to  determine  its  qualit}^  a  cut  was  made 
across  the  upper  part  through  a  thickness  of  49  inches,  including 
everything  except  large  fragments  of  three  shale  partings  which,  pre- 
sumably, could  be  separated  in  commercial  mining.  About  40  pounds 
of  coal  was  taken  from  this  cut,  crushed,  well  mixed,  and  quartered, 
