206 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
though followed for more than one hundred feet into the hill.. Two miles 
west from Deersville it is seen near the road leading through Brownsville, 
and is there barely sixteen inches. In the immediate vicinity of Deers- 
ville openings have been made by Mr. Irwin and others, but in each case 
the coal was of poor quality and barely twenty inches thick. The same 
difficulty is experienced elsewhere in the township, so that the McMillen 
coal, notwithstanding its inferior quality, has a high reputation, and is 
carried even to Tippecanoe, where Coal No. 7 is well developed. 
In Stock township this bed was frequently seen along the Stone Fork 
of Stillwater. Occasional openings are seen, but the coal is so poor as to 
discourage all attempts to develop it. Mr. H. B. Lacey, of Laceyville, 
has run in about one hundred feet without finding any thing but a com- 
pact, richly bituminous shale, known in the neighborhood as cannel coal. 
The bed here is badly cut up by horsebacks, and varies from three to six 
feet in thickness. | 
In Monroe township, near Bowerston, an old opening is seen fifty feet 
above Coal No.7. This was worked many years ago, but is now deserted, 
and no observation could be made. The coal is said to be four feet thick. 
The bed can be traced without difficulty into North township along the 
roads, and shows a thickness varying from three to eighteen inches. 
The shales above this coal are usually dark colored, and contain iron 
ore, either as blackband or as nodules. In the south-western townships 
the ore is disseminated throughout the shale, and deposits of blackband 
are likely to be found there. In Franklin township the ore is in nodules. 
At McMillen’s bank these are quite numerous, but in hardly sufficient 
quantity to be of any economical value. In North and Monroe town- 
ships the ore resting on the coal is well marked, but variable in quality 
as well as in quantity. At some points it is a rich limonite, at others a 
blackband, while, again, it is simply nodular ore. It varies in thickness 
from one to two feet and one-half, and may be reached without difficulty 
at many points by stripping. The indications are that this will prove 
to be a valuable deposit, and it is well worthy of extended exploration. 
Wxposures may be found at several points along the road from New Mar- 
ket to Bowerston. 
Coal No. 7b is quite as variable as No. 7a, but differs from it in that . 
it is rarely of any value. Near Deersville, in Franklin township, it has 
been opened by Mr. Cornelius Vickers. It is two feet six inches thick, 
and without partings of any kind. It is a low-grade cannel, burning 
with a beautiful flame, giving a strong fire, but leaving so great a bulk of 
ashes that it is no longer used. In Rumley township it was opened on 
Mr. T. Lewis’s property, near the village of Rumley, and was found only 
