678 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
FIRE-CLAYS. 
The coals and ores here, as in other parts of the field, ordinarily rest 
upon fire-clays of varying thickness and quality. At Moxahala, above 
the Norris coal, is a bed of compact, non-plastic fire-clay about six feet 
thick, the lower four feet of which appears to be of good quality. It is 
reported to have been tested in the fire-brick works at Columbus with 
good results. 
LOWER SUNDAY CREEK REGION. 
‘(ois division embraces that part of the territory east of Snow Fork, 
«td north of the Hocking River, separated from the Moxahala region by 
that old channel of excavation or upheaval on the north line of Perry 
county. The proprietors of these lands have made systematic explora- 
tions by boring, and it has been mainly at their expense that the out- 
line of the want at the north has been located, and the character and 
position of the Great Vein ‘in this region determined. The valley of 
Snow Fork exposes the coal in its normal position, but to the eastward 
the dip carries it beneath the surface of the lowest valleys, and without 
these explorations its presence in the greater part of Trimble and Dover 
townships would be an inference only, rendered very probable by the 
known facts, but far from a certainty. 
The relations of the rock strata in this territory, so far as they are ex- 
plored, are indicated by the general section here pictured. The strata 
below the Great Vein are given only to the depth of recent borings, as 
the logs of the old salt wells are not accurately preserved, and i is evi- 
dent the section does not reach the bottom of the Coal Measures. It 
covers 537 feet of the Coal Measure rocks, from the top of the hills in 
the east part of Trimble township, to the bottom of the deepest well 
drilled for coal. Authentic records of the wells drilled for salt would 
add four to five hundred feet to the base of the section. 
Commencing at the base of the section, as given, there is a coal two 
and one-half feet thick at the point explored, which appeared to be a 
dry, burning coal, of fair quality, but of no present value. It is doubt- 
less the equivalent of the lower Moxahala seam, which, at the north 
reaches a thickness of five feet, and is there a valuable coal. 
