HOCKING VALLEY COAL FIELD. 953 
Straitsville. 
- The following mines are now worked at Straitsville, viz. : 
Troy mines, old and new, C. & H. C. & I. Co., No. 5. 
Straitsville Central mine, C. & H. C. & I. Co., No. 7. 
W. P. Rend’s mine. 
Straitsville Mining Company, C. & H. C. & I. Co., No. 33. 
Straitsville Coal Company, or Plumer Hill, C. & H. C. & I. Co., No. 35. 
Consolidated Coal Company’s Mine, Old Straitsville. Lately given up. 
The next mines to be reached in the particular body of coal that 
we have been following, are the two openings known as the Troy mines, 
or as No. 5 of the Columbus and Hocking Coal and Iron Company. 
These mines are as widely known as any in the field, and their output 
is as highly esteemed, especially for the lake trade. The seam shows 
its full thickness and its full strength. All of the favorable statements 
applied to the Shawnee Valley and Rock Run coal are also applicable 
here. The new mine is advancing to its northern limit, which is also 
the limit of the coal, not more than 800 feet intervening between the 
present workings and the outcrop. The old mine gets under heavy 
cover from the first. 
To the Excelsior mine of the Wagoner Coal Company of Summit 
county there was given, on a preceding page of this volume, the credit 
of making the largest output, in a single day, of any mine in Ohio, but 
that statement must be withdrawn and a higher place in production 
must be assigned to the Troy mines. From the new mine, 1,573 tons 
have been loaded ina single day of 9 hours, and from the old mine, 
1,499 tons in 9 hours, according to the testimony of James W. Heppel, 
the inside boss. 
In several adjoining rooms of the new mine, reptilian tracks were 
found in the roof shales, the first thus far reported in Ohio. They will 
be described on a succeeding page if space can be secured. 
The structure of the coal is shown below: 
The soft coal is given as 4 inches thick, but this measure is a 
minimum. ‘There are occasionally found, however, rooms in which no 
part of the bench to which the soft coal belongs is jrejected. The 
seam yields on this property fully 9 feet of clean coal. 
The mine of the Consolidated Coal Company, known as the Old 
Straitsville mine, occupies the outermost spur of the Great Vein, to 
which the Troy mine belongs. Its coal is all included in Section 19‘ 
