HOCKING VALLEY COAL FIELD. 917 
session, a great body of well authenticated facts and well-grounded 
conclusions in regard to the field. These facts and conclusions it is the 
purpose of the present chapter to embody. 
The practical development that is now going forward under the 
management of the large corporations that own so much of the field is 
of the greatest value. The Columbus and Hocking Coal and Iron 
Company, and the Ohio Central Coal Company in particular, are making 
very thorough and methodical examinations and measurements of their 
respective properties. 
Acreage of the Hocking Valley Field. 
Various estimates have been made of the areas that contain the 
thick coal of the Hocking Valley. Read estimates the field to be equal 
to 100,000 acres of 10 feet coal (Vol. III, p. 648). Hunt assigns an 
area of about 250 square miles or 160,000 to the field, without specifying 
the thickness of the coal contained. The map that accompanies this 
report is the first, so far as known, that has represented the areas actually 
occupied by the coal. Until such a map is in hand, only estimates and 
rough approximations of areas are possible, but with the map in hand, 
so many qualifications must be entered as to forbid the immediate 
attainment of any great degree of exactness. How far, for example, 
shall the coal be counted beyond its final disappearance below 
drainage? As has been said before, when the seam descends in full 
volume and in good condition below the valleys, some extension of it 
under cover must be recognized. The most important questions of this 
sort pertain to the Sunday Creek Valley, but the southern portion of 
the Hocking Valley presents problems of the same character. Again, 
it is difficult to measure with accuracy the many small outliers of the 
coal, but it is “the wants” of the seam that furnish the largest element 
of uncertainty. 
The explorations so far made serve to mark the Sunday Creek 
Valley as the approximate boundary of the great seam. On the east 
side of the valley, the coal has been found faulty as a general thing, 
where it is not almost or altogether wanting, but there are areas in 
which it is known to be in normal character here, and to these atten- 
tion will subsequently be called. 
Counting the Ohio Central Railway as the eastern boundary of the 
thick coal, and the north line of Athens township as the southern 
