LOH: UEOLOGY OF OHIO. 
\ 
The Sheridan Coal, which completes the section, is found at an eleva-_ 
tion of seventy feet above the Gray Limestone. It is less steady as a 
seam than the New Castle Coal. It is, however, quite well shown in the 
section under consideration. It is opened in W. D. Kelly’s orchard, where 
it has a thickness of three feet. The coal gets its southern name, viz., 
the Sheridan seam, in this vicinity. The mines of Hon. E. Nigh, which 
are located about seven miles above Ironton, have received this designa- 
tion, but no new name would have been affixed to the seam if it had been 
distinctly understood that the Sheridan Coal and the Ashland Coal were 
the same. The latter coal is widely and favorably known. No question 
in regard to these coals being one and the same seam can now ve raised. 
The sections on opposite sides of the river are identical through at least 
three hundred and fifty feet of strata. The character of a coal can not 
be inferred from the name by which it is known. Coal No. VI, the Nel- 
sonville seam, is certainly the most valuable coal of the district, but por- 
tions of it are to,be found of sulphurous and otherwise inferior quality. 
It seems to contain a larger measure of sulphur in the Ohio Valley than 
at the northward, but there are in this general region large areas in which 
it displays its greatest excellence. The Walnut township Coal, of Gallia 
county (lower seam), according to all investigations thus far made, com- 
pares well with the best showing of the Hocking Valkey Coal, except in 
thickness. It yields at least five feet of coal for a large area. The seam 
at Sheridan, as at Coalton, Kentucky, shows in places a large percentage 
of sulphur, but there is a great deal of excellent coal at each of these 
localities. Hxperiments have been lately made in coking the coal at the 
Sheridan mines, but the result has not been learned. None of the trials 
thus far reported in coking Coal No. VI in this district has been entirely 
successful. The coal can be charred, but its slack has never yet been 
taken up. 
The characteristic features of the section just given are apparent. No- 
where else in the district is there such a development of sandstones as 
in the southern part of Lawrence county. Four great ledges, no one of 
them less than twenty feet in thickness, have been found in the one hun- 
dred and eighty feet already traversed; and the sandstone next to be 
named, is quite as massive and conspicuous as any thus far described. 
The section now described does not terminate with the Sheridan Coal, 
but one hundred feet of strata overlie this horizon in the hill belonging 
to W. D. Kelly, Hsq., and also in the adjoining land of John Campbell, 
Hsq. It has been found more convenient, however, to break the section 
at this point, as just about the same number of feet remain to be de- 
scribed. 
