‘OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY me _ LIBRARIES a Net 2 8 Ne ORTON. GEOLOGY OF PORTAGE COUNTY. By Colonel Charles Whittlesey. Prior to 1853 I had explored for the out- crop of Coal No. 1, from Massillon up the Tuscarawas Valley to the Summit, near Akron, thence through Coventry, Spring- field, Tallmadge and Brimfield to Ravenna, and over the Summit in Edinburg, Charles- | town, Paris and Palmyra,in the valley of the Mahoning. These explorations were in de- | tail,on every farm where the rocks appeared in place. On about twenty of those farms, borings and excavations were made to as- certain the thickness of the coal. At that time shait-minimg had not been much thought of in Ohio, and even now has not been much put in practice. A remarkable feature of Coal No, 1, along this line of fiftv miles im length, where it is found in place, is that the seam is not gen- erally of workable thickness on the outcrop. The borings that have since been made within the border of the coal-field disclose great irregularities in thickness. Af- ter passing ten to fifteen miles with- in the basin towards its central parts, it is quite doubtful whether No. 1 will be found: or if its geolegical place shall be found, whether it is of mineable thickness. What its quality may be is still more uncertain than its thickness. Persons who own land within a few miles of the out- crop, not higher than the limestone beds, No. 1 or 2. should test these questions by boring, because there are chances of suc- C) ss. So little that is new or practically valu- able has been disclosed by the recent geo- logicalsurvey, in the counties along the line I have mentioned, taat I am imduced to give some of my observations, made before the survey was authorized. The accompanying outline map shows, by the broken line C. C. C., the general edge or outcrop of coal seam No. 1. Onthe Sumner Hill, west of Summit Lake, near Akron, there is an outlier of this seam, embracing several hundred acres, represented by the oval at A. The coal has been seen in several places, but nowhere exceeding three feet in thickness. Across the valley to the east in Coventry and Springfield it attains a workable thickness, over a large space, where it is and has been extensively wrought. At B., in the northwest- erly part of Tallmadge, is another outlier, where the first coal im Obio was worked in the year 1810. From this property the first coal was taken to the Ohio Canal for the Cleveland market in 1828 by my father, Asaph Whittlesey, and Samuel Newton. In 1838 the Tallmadge | Coal Company was organized, embracing nearly all the hill, Under more than half of it the coal was not thick enough to be successfully worked. The remainder is now nearly worked out. It has been found at its proper elevation through Tallmadge from the Little to the Great Cuyahoga Rivers, but at only a few points of workable thickness. Borings made on the highland in Tallmadge, east of the | outcrop, have not been successful. Through ‘the northerly part of Tallmadge its place |can be traced by the underlying fire clay | rock to Sawyer’s Hill, in the northwestern corner of Brimfield, the coal being thin and |frequently wanting. As shown on the | miniature map, the elevation of the lower coai seam in Coventry and Tallmadge is ;about the same, There are everywhere |local variations of level of twen- |ty-five or thirty feet in the same imine. To get the precise average requires a careful survey of each mine |and each neighborhood. The average of | Coal Hill, Tallmadge, is about 520 feet above Lake Erie. Between the coal and the con- |glomerate there are beds of fire-clay and | shale, with nodules of iron ore. At Cuyahoga Falls, the bottom of the /conglamerate is 350 feet A., and its surface | 470, the level of the canal being 451. North | of the Cuyahoga, in Stow, Summit county, the conglomerate is the surface rock, where | the coal is, of course, wanting. In the valley of Plum Creek, in Brimfield, Portage county, south of Kent, at the proper level the rocks are sellom seen in place, though on both sides the Jand is high |enough for the coal, being over 500 feet | above Lake Erie. The old openings are rep- resented on the map by an O in the broken |line, which indicates the outcrop. From |Sawyer’s Hill, easterly and northeasterly, through Brimfield and Franklin, until the | valley of Break Neck Creek is reached, near | where the oJd woolen millof Woodward & Company cnce stood, the coal is covered by drift. Here it was opened forty years since, but was thin and had little cover. Thence, |easterly, the place of the coai is about | 25 feet beneath the canal summit at Raven- |na, which is 501 feet A.L. E. Here nothing is seen in place except drift clay. gravel and hard pan. Coali—No. 1—reappears be- |yond the summit on the east, in the vailey of Barrel Run, near Campbellsport, at a ‘general elevation of 450 feet, ier vagal ; ‘SIOI[]JNO IO SILI PI}e[OsyT “gq{@ “W ‘ILI OYVT CAO JOO UT UOT}BAGTA SII PUB ‘O[QISIA SI 4L eLaqM szuteod ‘9 ‘O ‘CO ‘L ‘ON Urves [vo0 Jo dosojno 'Q ‘Q ‘Q—euUl] UeYO.1g 10 psqjog ‘saT}UNO,) AULT puv oSvzaog jo syavg jo dup autyng Many years since it was opened in the northwest part of Edinburg, on Barrel Run, and may easily be found at the proper ele- vation; but it is everywbere thin at the out- crop. Above it is the usual dark gray shale, and resting on this the ‘Massillon sand- stone,’’ which is the surface rock in Roots- town and the western part of Edinburg. As the base of this rock is 40 to 70 feet above coal No. 1, that seam should be found over a large part of both these townships, but as to its thickness it is not safe to predict. The so-called coal Nu. 2, which is occasionally ' found at the base of the Massillon sandstone, is sometimes mistaken for No. i. Tiis bed is of no practical value. To the west and northwest of Ravenna the Massillon sand- stone may be seen, but the country in this direction and to the north, in Shalersvilie, is covered by heavy drift hills and hollows at the level of No. 1 coal. Through Edin- burg and Palmyra, on the south side of the Mahoning, its place can be found in the ravines that come down from the hills into the valley. On the north side of the Ma- honing it can be found occasionally as indi- cated by the dotted line and circles, through Charlestown and the northwesterly part of Paris, into the southwest corner of Wind- ham. I have not seen it in those townships exceeding twenty inches in thickness. There are probably limited patches of coal thick enough to work under the highlands in Freedom and Shalersville, a question to be settled only by borings. Its place is about 150 feet beneath the lower limestone. The summit in Freedom is reported to be 613 feet A. L. E.. which is not far from the elevation of this limerock. On the south of Ravenna the railroad summit in Rootstown is 595, and the place of the coal less than 150 feet beneath it, probably within 125 feet. Coal No. 3 (of the reports) lies directly under limestone No. 1,.or the blue, and Coal No. 4 beneath limestone No. %, known as the gray. These limestones are seldom more than thirty feet apart, and useful guides to the position of the lower coal, but the coal strata of which they form the roof are only of local value. They are above the Massil- lon sandstone, and are frequently seen in the townships of Deerfieid and Atwater. In boring for the lower coal, it is much better to start on a rock in place whose geo- logical horizon is‘known. The probable depth can thus be known, and when that is reached, great care should be used to pump frequently and to preserve the material brought up. Without skill and close obser- vations the value of a bore may be lost en- tirely. In Suffield and Randolph the stratified rocks are generally hidden by the drift which assumes the form of true glacial moraines. There are in Suffield loose blocks of limerock that appear to be differ- ent from Nos. or 2, probably lime- stone No. 3, or the white limestone, which is nearly as regular as those below, and which is not far below No. 5 Coal. It is very common in Columbiana, Stark and Tuscarawas counties, and makes a much Shah lime than the other limestone eds. 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