HOLMES COUNTY. | 555 
but it is in three benches and with many sulphur seams. In other 
parts of the county it is of a similar character, and generally of less 
thickness. It is from this coal and the limestone above it, that the 
farmers of Holmes county are to obtain material for restoring the fertility 
of their lands and recovering their future productiveness. The coal is 
usually of sufficient thickness to suffice for burning the limestone which 
rests upon it, and ranges in thickness from three to six feet. As the coal 
and limestone can be taken out of the same entry, and both mined with 
facility, there is no place where quick-lime can be obtained at less ex- 
pense than here. Properly used, this deposit will add largely to the 
wealth of the county. This limestone has also been tested as a flux in 
the smeiting furnace, and is well adapted to that purpose. 
The Bennington mine, near Nashville, which I refer to this horizon, 
but which may probably be No. 6, furnishes an excellent coal, much 
superior to that from any other opening in the gray limestone seam with 
which I am acquainted. The seam is generally underlaid by a thick de- 
posit of fire-clay of good quality, and which has been successfully used 
in the manufacture of pottery. That from an opening a little east of 
Millersburg, makes a very strong, smooth ware, and burns to a bright 
cherry-red. 
Coal No. 5,—From twelve to fifteen feet above No. 4, in a few places in 
the eastern part of the county, is a black limestone from two to three 
feet thick, with outcrops of this coal below it, and occasionally its hori- 
zon can be seen where the limestone is wanting. None of the outcrops 
observed gave promise of valuable coal. 
Coal No. 6.—At a distance ordinarily ranging from forty to fifty feet 
above the gray limestone, is found Coal No. 6. The interval is some- 
times very much greater, and in a few places not exceeding twenty feet. 
It is from this seam that the coals of the county are most widely known, 
and from which a large part of the coal mined in the county will proba- 
bly be taken for many years to come. , 
At Mr. Saunders’s, and the Hardy Coal Company’s upper mine, In 
Hardy township, this coal has been successfully mined for many years. 
It is here hard, bright, moderately cementing, is an excellent grate and 
steam coal, and makes a compact coke. It is in three benches, the mid- 
dle onescontaining a much smaller percentage of sulphur than the 
others, and making a good blacksmith’s coal. The peculiar purple color 
of the ash of the top and middle benches enables one to identify this ~ 
coal by the debris from the stoves and grates wherever used. Ata few 
place only the ash is light-colored. The seam in this neighborhood, at 
the Hardy Coal Company’s, Mr. Saunders’s, Judge Armor’s, Johnson’s, 
