COSHOCTON COUNTY. 567 © 
In some localities in the county, two other beds of limestone make 
their appearance: one, dark-gray, or black, above the “‘ Gray limestone ” 
and Coal No. 6; the other, a local bed, between the “ Blue” or “ Zoar,” 
and the “Gray” or “ Putnam Hill limestone.” In one place—Alexander 
Hanlon’s farm, Mill Creek township—these lower limestone beds seem to 
run together, forming a nearly continuous mass, twenty feet in thick- 
ness. Usually, the persistent limestone strata—the “Blue and the 
“Gray ”—are fifty to eighty feet apart. A coal seam (No. 3) generally lies 
immediately under this limestone, also, but is rarely of any value; and 
the same may be said of the bed above it (No. 8a), and also of the next 
below it (No. 2), both of which seem to be wanting in this county. The 
limestones in the western and central parts of the county are frequently 
accompanied by large quantities of the hard, flinty rock, known as chert. 
There is often a great display of it, in loose pieces, in the roads above 
and below the outcrops of these calcareous strata; but natural exposures 
of it in place, are very rare. In several instances, the limestone beds are 
seen intermixed with chert, and it is also noticed that chert sometimes 
takes the place entirely of the limestone. 
A few other limestone beds have occasionally been noticed at a higher 
position than the gray limestone, and one also between that and the 
blue, but they are of rare occurrence, and have only a local interest, ex- 
cept in their relation to limestone beds in similar part of the series in 
other counties. | 
The sandstone beds are sometimes developed to the thickness of 70 to 
100 feet of massive layers. They are very apt, however, to pass into 
their bedded sheets, and again into shales. Rarely do they become even 
slightly-calcareous, and no instance was observed of their passing into 
limestone. The most persistent of the sandstone beds, so far as it could 
be traced before it disappears under the overlying strata, is the great bed 
at the base of the Coal Measures. The bed over Coal No. 6 is alse very 
unrform. 
No iron ore, in any encouraging quantity, has been met with in the 
county. It is seen scattered in kidney-shaped pieces among the shales, 
but never concentrated sufficiently to justify drifting for it. There may 
‘be one exception to this on the farms of James Boyd and W. Hanlon, in 
Kkeene township, near Lewisville, where a slight exploration, made at 
our suggestion, has developed, just below Coal bed No. 6 (or it may be 
the one above it) ferruginous layers resembling the blackband ore, mixed 
with kidney ore, said to be six feet thick. Kidney ore of good quality 
is also found between Linton and Jacobsport, in the south-east part of 
Linton township. 
