500) GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
as shown in the section at Motes’s bank, where the included shale measures 
nine feet. The want of good iron-making coal in large quantities will 
probably prevent the mining of this and the other ores of the county for 
some time, but when a demand arises this horizon will furnish a large 
amount of valuable ore. | 
Coal No. 2.—Shales, ordinarily varying from eighteen to twenty or 
thirty feet in thickness, separate the above from Coal No. 2—the Straw- 
bridge seam—the iron-ore coal, from its loca! character, not being num- 
bered. In the south part of Knox township. these shales are nearly one 
hundred feet in thickness, exceeding largely their usual development. 
This coal rests upon from six to ten feet of white fire-clay, apparently 
quite pure, and of excellent quality. It is capped with sandy shale, im 
places passing into a shaly sandstone, which at top frequently becomes 
massive, and contains nodules of silicious iron ore. At the Strawbridge 
mine, in the northern part of Killbuck township, now owned by the 
Hardy Coal Company, this coal is at the outcrop seven feet thick,a hard, 
compact, semi-cannel or splint coal, reasonably free from: sulphur, con- 
taining a rather large percentage of ash, but a good domestic and steam 
coal. The opening is in a narrow gorge, which apparently cuts the cen- 
tre of the old coal marsh, from whence the coal will doubtless gradually 
diminish in thickness as the margin 1s approached. As thiscoal is ordi- 
narily thin, its remarkable development here suggested the possibility of 
a slip or fold, causing the coal to double on itself, and thus inerease ab- 
normally its thickness. An examination, however, of the rooms and. 
entries shows even, parallel lines of lamination im the ceal, and that the 
unusual thickness is owing to the great depth of the original coal marsh. 
An unfortunate attenapt was made to mine this coal on a large seale, by 
& company without any experience in coal mining, and just at the com- 
mencement of the great depression in the price of coal. Iailure, under 
such circumstances, was inevitable. The work has been abandoned, pil- 
lars drawn, and the mine left almost a wreck; while it is evident that 
there is a large amount of good coal, of workable thickness, in the prop- 
erty. The seam can not be expected to maintain, m the working rooms, 
the thickness shown at the mouth of the mine. Outcrops on all sides of 
the hill show comparatively thin coal, and a grauual reduction in thick- 
mess is to be anticipated in all directions in the mine. 
At Mitchart’s bank, in the south part of Knox township, it is four 
feet thick, apparently of good quality, but, at the time of visiting it, 
the entry was not pushed far enough into the hill, to determine accu- 
rately its character. 
The outcrop of this coal may be seen in the raviwes near Mr. Glas- 
