760 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
more. The coal lies here a little higher than at Swift’s, but it dips 
rapidly south again, and is some forty feet lower at Rush Run. 
At Mingo the coal is chiefly used in the furnace, and is coked on the 
spot. Deep borings made at Mingo by J. C. Crane, Esq., show a worka- 
ble coal seam three feet nine inches thick at the depth of one hundred 
and thirty-nine feet below the Shaft Coal. This is doubtless the same 
with that struck in boring on Cross Run, one hundred and forty-seven 
feet below the seam which is the equivalent of the Steubenville shaft 
coal. Just which of the Yellow Creek coals this lower one is cannot be 
certainly determined. It is more likely, however, to be the representa- 
tive of Coals No. 8 or No. 4 than of No. 5, as has been suggested. 
The coal is probably thinner at Mingo, because it originally accumu- 
lated on higher ground. We find in all our coal mines that the coal is 
thickest in the “swamps,” and thin or wanting on the ridges. This 
means that it accumulated as peat in a bog, of which the bottom was 
irregular, and from which, in many cases, islands projected. Over these 
islands no coal was formed, but on their sides it reached up to the water 
line, perhaps fifty feet or more above the deepest portion of the marsh. 
When buried under clay and sand, and greatly compressed, the coal, 
into which the peat was converted, occupies perhaps not more than one- 
tenth of the space that the spongy peat did, but it will be found reach- 
ing from the bottom of the basin where the peat was, and the coal is now 
thickest over the shallows in diminished thickness, and up the slopes of 
islands or shores to the original water-line, where it terminates in a 
feather edge. 
LA GRANGE. 
At La Grange the La Grange Coal Co., of which Mr. John Lowe is 
manager, have sunk a shaft to the Coal No. 6. The shaft is 261 feet 
deep, beginning 87.56 feet above low water in the Ohio, or 43.58 feet 
above the grade of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad. By barome- 
tric measurement Coal No. 8 lies 333 feet above the railroad at La Grange, 
which would give for the distance between Coals Nos. 6 and 8, 550.42 feet. 
I am informed by Mr. Lowe that he had the distance measured by level 
some time since, and that it was found to be about 540 feet. The coal at 
La Grange is five feet three inches thick, divided into three benches by 
two slate partings of one inch each, respectively seven and twenty-eight 
inches above the bottom. The shaft at La Grange was sunk under the 
direction of Mr. Lowe, who was the pioneer in this mining enterprise, 
and one of the principal stockholders in the company. He is one of the 
best informed men in the county in regard to its geology, and we are 
indebted to him for much valuable information and assistance in the 
prosecution of the survey. | 
