THE LOWER COAL MEASURES. 285 
main working of the coal is limited to Liberty township. From Kim- 
bolton, where it is found 85 feet above the level of Will’s Creek, it can 
be followed up the valley by connected workings as far as Broom’s Salt 
Works, where it lies 15 feet above low water. It descends below the 
valley in this immediate neighborhood. Throughout the territory 
included between these limits, it is or has been worked on every farm 
for local use. 
The coal is found in a single bench, which varies from 30 to 36 
inches in thickness. A sulphur and dirt band occurs below it, which 
seems to represent the parting in the seam that is so commonly found 
elsewhere. According to this view the coal consists of the upper bench 
of the main seam. The seam seldom yields fully 3 feet of coal, but 
when it is mined out, it leaves “a three-foot hole in the ground.” 
The quality of the coal is probably below the best standards of the 
seam, but it is still a well approved fuel for ordinary uses. The per- 
centage of ash appears to be somewhat higher than usual, and, in short, 
the seam is gradually giving way in quality and quantity. 
One opening to the seam, on Robert R. Miller’s farm, shows 18 
inches of coal, overlain by 18 inches of black fossiliferous slate, a fact 
that stands by itself so far, in the township. The immediate roof of 
the seam consists of a few feet of shale, above which a massive and 
distinctly conglomeritic phase of the Lower Freeport sandstone occurs. 
The coal of this seam has kept in operation the several salt wells 
of the valley for a long term of years, and in furnishing this supply, a 
considerable acreage has been exhausted. The front hills, especially, 
have been robbed of their coal in the vicinity of the wells, so that it is 
becoming difficult in some cases to approach the undisturbed body of 
coal that lies behind them. 
It may be counted sure that this seam will furnish in years to come 
a basis for considerable mining operations in the Will’s Creek Valley. 
Its steadiness insures this result, despite the small measures reported 
here. 
THe Upper KITTANNING CoAL? 
It will be remembered that a small coal seam has been reported in 
Jefferson and Columbiana counties as a normal element of the series 
between the Middle Kittanning and Lower Freeport coals. The same 
element seems to be shown in various sections in the Will’s Creek 
