324 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
Wellston coal in 1873. This was followed in 1874 by a shaft owned by 
the Wellston Coal and Iron Co. For some time after the discovery of 
this coal there was considerable diversity of opinion as to whether the 
Jackson and Wellston coals were equivalent, but the question was 
settled in 1877. | 
Two narrow-gauge railroads were projected to the Jackson county 
coal field in 1876—the Springfield, Jackson and Pomeroy Railroad and 
the Dayton and Southeastern Railroad. The Springfield, Jackson and 
Pomeroy road was projected to reach the Jackson shaft coal, and the 
Dayton and Southeastern the Coalton coal. The Springfield road was 
completed to Jackson in the early part of 1878, but the superiority of 
the Coalton coal for domestic purposes and for generating steam was so 
marked that a branch road was at once run up Horse Creek from 
Jackson, to strike the Coalton seam, 5 miles north of Jackson. 
The mines at Coalton were opened in the fall of 1878, and ship- 
ments of coal began at once. The Springfield road was, however, in 
the fall changed to a standard gauge, and little shipping was done be- 
fore winter. It is now known as the Ohio Southern Railroad. 
In the spring of 1880 the Dayton road was finished to Wellston, 
the two lines meeting at Coalton, making a second outlet for the coal. 
A dozen mines were opened, and a mining village built, as if by magic, 
and what was two years ago a rough and poor agricultural country, 
sparsely settled, was filled up by a new population, who sought and found 
treasures in the bowels of the earth. The Dayton and Southeastern 
road is now part of the Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis road. 
~The coal out-put of the county, which in 1873 did not exceed 
60,000 tons, in 1880 exceeded 200,000 tons, and in 1882, 350,000 tons. 
A brief sketch of the early development of all the mining districts 
of the State would make an interesting paper, but would be too long 
for the space allotted to this chapter. 
CONDITIONS OF CoAaL MINING IN OHIO. 
The beds of coal which traverse the Ohio coal field are not dis- 
turbed by dykes or dislocations of the strata, so frequently found in other 
coal fields of the world. ‘There are many local faults found in our coal 
mines, which are known by the general name of “ horsebacks.” These 
faults, which sometimes come from the roof and sometimes from the 
floor of the mine, are occasionally troublesome and expensive; but tak- 
