CARROLL COUNTY. 185 
quently weigh from twenty to fifty pounds. Horsebacks, from above and 
below, are somewhat annoying, as they cut out the coal quite seriously. 
No fire-damp has been known in this mine, but choke-damp is said to 
accumulate at times so as to embarrass the workmen. The coal is hard 
and brilliant, and can be mined only by blasting. It affords an excellent , 
fuel for domestic use, burning well and giving off intense heat, but the 
proportion of pyrites is so large as to unfit it for employment in the 
manufacture of either iron or illuminating gas. At Smith’s mill, near 
Leesville, this coal has been mined in the hill, and at a short distance 
below the mill it is worked somewhat largely during the winter. As 
the owner of this property has no respect for geologists, and regards the 
Survey as a worse than useless expenditure on the part of the State, no 
direct information respecting the mine could be obtained. I learned, 
however, that the coal is soft and can be mined with picks; that it burns 
readily, but gives off comparatively little heat, and is not looked upon 
as a profitable fuel. In this vicinity no iron ore was observed in con- 
nection with the coal. 
Near the Cross Roads, in Monroe township, the outcrop of this coal 
was seen in the roadside, very thin, and having four inches of nodular 
ore above it. In Harrison township it was formerly worked on the 
property of Mrs. 8. Bemer, where it showed a thickness of two and one- 
half to three feet, without ore above it. Near the steam saw-mill, about 
midway between Cannonsburg and Carrollton, this coal was formerly 
worked, but the openings were long ago deserted. The thickness is said 
to be about two feet. Fifteen feet below the coal is a nodular calcareous 
ore of low grade, of which the nodules have zinc blende as the nucleus. 
In Center township Mr. I. Ebersole’s opening, about one-half mile north 
from Carrollton, shows it twenty-five inches thick, without partings, 
made up of very fair coal, containing little pyrites. At Mr. Sandford 
Moffatt’s, two miles west from the village, the thickness is about the 
same, but the coal contains rather more pyrites. There are other open- 
ings near Carrollton, but they are not worked. Three-fourths of a mi e 
south from that village the coal is seen in the bed of Indian Fork of 
Conotton. 
In Fox township it is mined somewhat extensively to supply local de- 
mand. About one mile from Wattsville, Mr. H. P. Dunlap’s opening 
shows a thickness of three feet four inches. The coal is very hard, and 
requires blasting. It is very clean, and the seam is free from persistent 
partings. Not far from Mechanicsville it is mined by Messrs. Josiah 
Quinn, Jacob Buckston, and others. In all these banks it runs about three 
feet thick, and yields a coal of good quality for domestic use. No ore ac- 
