254 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
there is no reason to doubt that it is the Lower Freeport coal which 
has furnished what basis there is for the traditions of an important coal 
seam at no great depth at Bowerston and in that vicinity. This is the 
seam that is reported in the recent drilling done for W. P. Penn, at 
Bowerston. The drillers testify to finding from 5 ft. 2 in. to 5 ft. 6 in. 
of coal about 70 feet below the Upper Freeport seam. Without calling 
in question their good faith, it seems safe to conclude that the interval 
is not as great as was reported, the measure being taken from the rope 
used in drilling, which is an unreliable mode of measurement at best. 
Furthermore, it is possible that the two feet or more of the black shale, 
that commonly overlies the Lower Freeport seam in this vicinity, may 
have been counted as coal. Such errors are known to be of common 
occurrence. Without discrediting these reports, therefore, and yet 
without accepting them as exact statements of the facts, it may be 
counted probable that a good seam of Lower Freeport coal, 3 feet or 
more in thickness, can be got by shafting between 50 and 60 feet below 
the Upper Freeport seam at Bowerston. It is well to remember in this 
connection that the Lower Freeport coal is the shaft seam of Steuben- 
ville, and that this last-named seam ought to be rising to day at just 
this point. There is no reason to believe from any of the facts relating 
to this seam in its nearest outcrops, that it anywhere acquires great 
volume, and the prevalent belief to that effect in this vicinity is to be 
referred to the exaggerations that fasten themselves so commonly and 
so persistently to the records of drill holes, and other lines of facts 
that are incapable of verification. 
The Brush Creek coal (Salineville Strip Vein) is fairly developed 
throughout this district. It is mined in the small way at many points, 
but it is nowhere shipped to the general market. 
Other well-known elements that belong to higher horizons are, of 
course, found in the highlands of the county. Two sections will be 
here reported to show the range of intervals that is to be expected in this 
region. 
| The first is found in what is called the ‘ Backbone road” from 
Bowerston to Carrollton, where it leaves the valley of Connotton, half- 
way between Smith’s Mills and Sherrodsville. The lower intervals are 
normal here, but the upper ones are the shortest to be found in this 
district. The section is as follows: | 
