158 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
made in years past, and an excellent character for the seam established. 
There are many traces of a coal seam between the horizon of the Sharon 
coal and the Lower Mercer coal throughout this portion of the State, 
but it is very rare that a thickness suitable even for local mining is 
found. In Hocking and in Perry there have been opened at one time 
or another a few local. banks, but none of them are kept open at the 
present time. 
The Strawbridge Cannel of Holmes county has been referred to 
this horizon by mistake. This seam is on the Upper Mercer horizon. 
The horizon of the Quakertown coal is 75 to 100 feet below the 
Lower Mercer limestone, which would place it 50 to 75 feet above the 
Sharon coal. The interval in Jackson county are greater than this. 
3. THe LOwER MERCER COAL. 
Synonyms.—Coal No. 3, Coal No. 2, of Mahoning county, the Blue Limestone coal, 
Flint Ridge Cannel, ete. 
This seam has a distribution coextensive with the margin of the 
Coal Measures in Ohio, but its value is not proportioned to its extent. 
Though occurring in 13 counties of the State, and though belonging to 
one of the most conspicuous and best-known horizons ef the Coal 
Measures, it is worked for railroad transportation in but a single county, 
viz., Mahoning, and here in but a single small mine. It is but very 
sparingly mined even for neighborhood use throughout the State. In 
Holmes county a single mine is opened and worked in this seam. In 
Hopewell township, Muskingum county, there are a number of mines 
opened, that meet quite a large local demand, and in Hopewell town- 
ship, Licking county, the well-known Flint Ridge Cannel represents 
the horizon. 
Many attempts have been made to mine this seam in Perry, 
Hocking, and Vinton counties, and several neighborhood mines are 
now in operation in the two last-named counties, but all attempts to 
find a coal at this horizon that can compete in the general market with 
approved fuels have proved unsuccessful. The most persistent and 
expensive undertakings of this kind have been made along the line of 
the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, in the neighborhood of Zaleski. 
Where the seam has thickness enough to warrant mining, it is too im- 
pure to find sale. 
There is no general chdracter of the seam throughout the State, 
