GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
different seams, Nos. 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 of the geological nomenclature. 
In mining districts, however, the coals are known by other names than 
numerals, as, for example, the Brier Hill coal, the Massillon coal, the 
Nelsonville coal and the Ohio River coal, and so on, and so they will 
ever be known; these names indicating the districts from which the 
coals are mined, and giving them a commercial value which dealers 
easily comprehend. 
The coal beds in their progress through the coal area are very 
changeable in their character and thickness. Thus, the Brier Hill coal 
is one of the purest and best seams in the State; while the Mineral 
Ridge coal, although geologically the same bed as the Brier Hill, and 
separated from the Brier Hill not more than one mile, differs greatly in 
its chief properties and adaptability for various uses, and is greatly 
inferior in quality, the Brier Hill coal being a long grained block coal, 
hard, firm, compact, a homogeneous bed, and adapted for furnace use 
in a raw state; while the Mineral Ridge variety is a short grained, fri- 
able, tender coal, and totally unfit for furnace use. It is also divided 
into two benches by a band of shale from 1 to 4 feet in thickness, upon 
which rests a stratum of blackband ore from 1 inch to 1 foot in thick- 
ness. 
THe DEVELOPMENT OF CoAaL MINING IN O8BIO. 
The existence of coal in Ohio was noted by the early frontiersmen 
and by travelers from the time of the earliest settlements. In 1755 a 
seam of coal was discovered on fire near Bolivar, in Tuscarawas county. 
A map of the western country, now in possession of Judge T. H. Ewing, 
of Lancaster, published in the year 1788, notes several sections of iron 
ore beds, and Harris, in his tour in 1803, states that on the banks of the 
Hockhocking, ‘‘quarries of excellent free stone, beds of pit coal, iron 
ore, lead, strata of white and blue clay of excellent quality, red bole, 
-and many other useful fossils are found.” 
Some of the pioneer miners of the State still survive. Coal was 
mined by stripping near the village of Talmadge, in Summit county, as 
early as 1810. Mr..Asaph Whittlesey, father of Col. Chas. Whittlesey, 
of Cleveland, and Mr. Henry Newberry, father of Dr. J. S. Newberry, 
were the pioneer miners of Eastern Ohio, and Col. Whittlesey has 
published a very interesting account of the discovery and development 
of the coals of that part of the State. The first mines opened by 
