Manual of Coal and its topography. Illustrated by original drawings

Front matter

COAL AND ITS TOPOGRAPHY. MANUAL OF COAL AND ITS TOPOGRAPHY. ILLUSTRATED BY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS, CHIEFLY OF FACTS IN THE GEOLOGY OF THE APPALACHIAN REGION OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. BY J. P. LESLEY, TOPOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGIST. PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. 1856. Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by J. P. LESLEY, in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Preface

. The author has planted this sapling for the future shade and orna ment of his own office, but trusts that it may prove useful also, and perhaps agreeable, to the public highway. To the public, therefore, he offers no apology. But his brethren in science will in courtesy consider how hard a thing it is to treat a large subject in few words ; to reduce to reasonable limits a theme of infinite details, which has been pondered long, postponed from year to year, and finally accomplished amid the multiplying avocations of a professional life. To them the only merit it can claim will seem but small, — the presenta tion of a few results of original research and the expression of inde pendent opinions upon matters of common interest. In explanation, it is necessary only to add, that the sketches were all made upon the ground and drawn on wood by the author, to pre serve with accuracy those points of interest to his own mind which he desires to illustrate in the text, and upon this their whole value as illustrations of truth depends ; as works of art they are nothing.

In three instances (Figs. 7, 17, 18) he has copied drawings which have been given to the public by others ; in one other instance (§ 31) he has, after some hesitation, given data transmitted through a private letter of an old date, without previously obtaining the permission of its author. With these exceptions, he believes his book to be free from actual plagiarisms. It must happen, however, that out of a mass of materials brought together under every variety of circumstances, through nearly twenty years of observation, even the small selection here made must contain many which are due to the labors of others, and bestowed in friendship or business upon the author. He finds it of course impossible to do justice to this interchange of thought and work ; but wherever important contributions to science could be identified with those who made them, he has done it, and for the rest can only thank friends of the past and present time in general but respect ful and affectionate terms. 1* VI

PREFACE.

. To two of these, now in distant parts of the world, men of infinite scope and love in science, poets by Divine right, pure-hearted, true to every duty, to whom, as master in youth and friend in middle age, the author has owed what it would be presumption to attempt in words, and American science what it has never yet had the opportunity to acknowledge — TO JAMES D. WHELPLEY AND ANDREW A. HENDERSON, €lns jrBititttal IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The General Relationships Of Coal

PAGE Coal ........ 13 § 1. How found . . . . . .13 § 2. How thick . . . . . .13 § 3. How wide ...... 13 § 4. How separated and accompanied . . .15 § 5. By Limestone ; gypsum . . . .16 -». § 6. By Iron (carbonate, sulphuret, black band) . 17 § 6. Proportion of ore, fuel and flux . . .20 § 7. By Fireclay, (double beds), (p. 217) . . 20 Blackslate . . . . . . .22 Cannel coal . . . . . . .23 Anthracite . . . . . . .24 Essential distinctions of coal, &c. . . . .25 Coke ........ 27 § 11. Use, weight ...... 27 Coal beds ....... 29 § 12. When practicable . . . . .29 § 13. How indicated at the surface. . . . .31 § 14. By terraces . . . . .32 § 15. By springs . . . . .33 § 16. By blackdirt (creeping crops) . . .35 § 17. How traced . . . . . .37 § 18. By dip and strike . . . . .38 § 19. How identified . . . . . .40 § 19. By individual peculiarities . . .41 § 19. In spite of changes over wide areas . .43 § 19. And changes in crust structure . . .45 CONTENTS.

Chapter II. The Place Op Coal Among The Formations

PAGE Coal 47 § 1. How deposited . . . . • .47 § 2. Not as lignite ...... 47 § 3. At one era . . . . . .47 Falæzoic formations ...... 51 First sand-rock, Potsdam sandstone No. I. . .56 § 6. Followed by the rest of the lower Silurian . 56 § 6. Underlaid by azoic or protozoic . . -57 Second sand-rock, Medina sandstone, No. IV. . . 57 § 8. Followed by the rest of the upper Silurian . . 59 § 9. Oriskany sandstone, No. VII., Pulpit Eocks . . 60 Third sand-rock, Catskill group, No. X. . . .62 § 11. Overland by vespertine red shale, No. IX. . . 64 § 11. Section of salt well at St. Louis, (p. 218). . . 65 False coal measures, or protocarboniferous . . .66 § 12. In Pennsylvania . . . . .66 § 13. In Virginia • ,♦. 67 Fourth sand-rock, Conglomerate, No. XII. . . .69 § 14. Concretionary pebbles — fossil impressions . . 71 § 15.

Origin and extent . . ... .74 True coal measures . . . . . .76 § 16. Carboniferous formation . . . .76 § 16. Terminal basins . . . .79 § 17. Origin, &c. . . . . .80 Bituminous coal beds . . . . . .82 § 17. Sections . . . . . .82 § 18. Pittsburg bed . . . . . .84 Anthracite coal beds . . . . . .86 § 19. Sections . . . . . .86 § 20. Identified by fossil plants . . . .89 Lower system of coal beds in Western Pennsylvania . . 91 § 21. Tabulated from McKinney's Eeports . . .94 § 23. Table described . . . . .95 Red shale (pp. 105, 106) . . . .96 Mahoning sandstone (p. 107) . . . .97 Freeport coals (p. 107) . . . . .98 Kittanning Cannel coals (pp. 108, 111, 112) . . CONTENTS. IX PAGE Buhrstone and ore (pp. 109, 110, 112-13) . . 100 Fossiliferous limestone ..... 102 Coals A and B (pp. Ill, 113-14, 120) . . .103 Conglomerate, No. XII. . . . . . 104 Lower system in Ohio, from Hildreth .... 105 § 25.

Muskingum conglomerate .... 105 Pomeroy coal ...... 107 Upper fossiliferous limestone .... 108 Limestones of Muskingum County, from Foster . 113 § 29. Lower coals of Trumbull and Portage, from Whittlesey 113 Outcrops across Ohio and Kentucky .... 115 Upper coal system, tabulated from Jackson and McKinley . 116 § 31. Great limestone .... 117-18 § 32. Wheeling section, from Briggs and Townsend . 119

Chapter III. Topography As

A SCIENCE. Topography defined . ... . . . 121 § 2. Distinction between Alpine and Appalachian . . 121 § 4. Analogy of Appalachian and Jura topography . . 123 § 7. Eesolved into the discussion of the mountain . . 125 The mountain ....... 126 § 8. Its three elements ...... 126 The mountain slope . . . . . .126 § 9. How sections look ..... 126 § 10. Of shallow synclinals . . . . .128 § 1 1. Of sharp synclinals ..... 128 § 12. Of anticlinals . . . . . .129 § 14. Apparent slope ; exaggerated ; Alpine . . 130 § 15. Volcanic slopes ..... 131 § 16. Trap-hill sections . . . . .133 § 17. Other injected rocks ..... 133 The mountain crest . . . . . .134 § 16. Zigzag lines, illustrated by McKinley . . . 135 § 17. Zigzag lines, illustrated by Henderson . . 136 § 18. Geometrical construction .... 138 § 20.

Zigzag lines, illustrated by Whelpley . . 140 § 20. Canoe Mountains ..... 141 § 21. Roches Moutonnes, Moraines, &c. . . . CONTENTS. X PAGE The mountain terminus . . • • .144 § 23. When the rocks thin out .... 144 § 24. When the rocks are folded . 145 § 25. The White Mountains . . • .145 § 26. Blue Ridge 145 § 27. Alps, Andes . • • • .145 § 28. When the rocks are cut off . . • • 147 § 29. The cove fault, the Virginia downthrows . 148 § 30. The Juniata fault . . • .149 Eddy hills and gaps ....•• 150 § 32 Evidences and instances of circular cutting . . 151 § 32. Eddy hillprongs on Pine Creek and Broad Top . 154 § 33. Isolated eddy hills ; Oswego ; Pittsburg ; Beaver . 155 \ 34. In three relations to the gap . . . 156 Deceptive topography . . . . . .157 § 35. Hartz mountains . . . . .157 § 36.

Pulpit Rocks . . . . . .157 Lamination and stratification .... 159 §38. Combined and opposed . . . .159 § 39. Obliterates dip ..... 160 § 40. Its law . . . . • • • 161 § 42. In coal ....... 163 § 43. Peculiar crystallization .... 163 § 43. False bedding in coal . . . . . 1 64 § 44. Fluidity of coal . . . . .164 Theory of denudation . . . . . .166 § 47. Cataract ravines (see Appendix and Fig.) . .167 § 48. Niagara Falls. § 49. Its age. § 51. Its acts . 169 § 53. Drift or diluvium. § 53. Lyell, Agassiz, Rogers . 177 § 54. Wave theory of Rogers .... 178 § 55. Plications of the crust .... 178 § 56. Normal curve. § 57. Does it exist ? . . . 179 Topography classified into 1. Structural . . . . . .181 2. Antistructural ...... 181 A. Longitudinal cutting .... 181 B. Transverse cutting ..... 182 C. Rectangular cutting . . . . .182 D. Oblique cutting .....

CONTENTS. PAGE Topography of coal regions classified into 1. Horizontal ...... 183 2. High synclinal ...... 183 3. Low synclinal ...... 183 4. Collapsed and compound synclinal . . .184 5. Broad Top region ...... 186

Chapter IV. Topography As An Art

Map making. § 1. Impossible without a knowledge of geology . . 187 § 3. Its perfection consists in detail .... 189 § 4. Science needful to the artist . . . .190 § 5. Especially the knowledge of natural relationships . 190 § 6. Common maps and sections mischievous . . 191 Field-work ....... 192 § 8. Reconnoissance . . . . . . 192 § 9. Instrumentation ..... 193 § 10. Compass ...... 193 § 11. Odometer . . . . . .194 Table of slope measurements .... 195 § 12. Note-books . . . . . .195 § 13. Running roads ...... 196 § 14. Numbers . . . . . .196 § 15. Stakes . . . . . .196 § 16. Running streams ..... 197 W 17. Running cross-sections .... 197 § 18. Running outcrops . . . . .197 § 19. Levelling with spirit-level .... 198 § 20. Levelling with vertical circle .... 198 § 21. Levelling with aneroid barometer . . .199 Office-work . . . . . . .200 § 22.

Note reduction . . . . . .200 § 24. Reduction of odometer notes .... 201 § 25. Reduction of vertical circle notes . . . 201 Plotting 201 § 25. Instruments ...... 201 § 26. Protractor . . . . . .202 ij 27. Scales CONTENTS. PAGE Scale of map .....•• 202 The map ......•• 203 § 27. Its elements . . . . • .203 Real lines § 31. Roads, houses, &c. .... 203 Ideal lines, with real references § 31. Land lines and corners .... 204 § 33. County lines . . . . .204 Ideal lines pure § 34. Latitude and longitude .... 204 § 35. Magnetic variation ; daily variation . . 205 ■ § 36. Hachure lines . . . . .206 § 37. Contour lines ; color ; relief . . . 207 Sections . . . . . .209 Conclusion ; general remarks ..... 211 State surveys ; organization ; reports .... 211 Plan of campaign ...... 213 Necessary precedence of topography . . . 214

Appendix

. Fireclay (p. 20) . . . . . . . 217 Permian formation (p. 51) ..... 217 " Primary" Silurian (p. 60) ..... 217 Description of St. Louis Salt boring (p. 65) . . . 218 Description of sections (p. 82) ..... 218 Fossil plants, Thompson's list of 1836 (p. 90) . . . 219 Nomenclature of American geology (p. 138) . . . 220 Mt. Washington (p. 146) ..... 221 Cleavage (p. 161) — Ribbon structure of glaciers (p. 162) . 222 Niagara Falls, Sawkill Fall. Towanda Falls (p. 174) . . 223 P. W. Sheafer's North and South dipping coal veins (p. 178) . 223 Sediment of the Mississippi (p. 47) .... COAL

Chapter I

COAL— ITS POSITION IN GENERAL. 1. Coal is never found issuing in veins from the interior of the planet, like gold and silver; nor filling irregular cross crevices in limestone, like lead; nor spread abroad in lakes of hardened lava, like basalt and greenstone; nor embedded in clay, crystallizing upward from the walls and bottoms of deep wide fissures, as bunches of grapes, or in bundles of pipes, like the hæmatite iron ores; nor lying exposed upon the surface in blocks, like native copper, or meteoric iron; but always as a thin sheet or stratum, extending through the hills as far as the hills extend, and inclosed between similar sheets of other kinds of rock. 2. Compared with the sum of all the rocks, in any given mountain, the thickness of even the largest coal-beds is in significantly small, nor does any known mountain contain a sufficient number of such beds to justify the expression so frequently employed by ignorant or interested persons, "it is a solid mass of coal."

There are, no doubt, few native business men of Philadelphia, who cannot remember the panic occasioned by the news that the miners had reached the bottom of the Mauch Chunk Summit Mine; after having benched down through seventy feet of nearly solid coal, opening to the sky in a vast quarry, what had been confidently regarded as but the vertex COAL. of a solid mountain ofthe mineral, the depth, and therefore the contents of which were quite incalculable. Lehigh Coal and Navigation Stock fell twenty per cent.; for the same miscon ception of the general position of the mineral underground, which had bestowed upon it such a marvellous depth, blinded the public to the fact of its much more marvellous lateral ex tent. Men were terrified to learn that the Mauch Chunk Mountain was not a solid mass of coal — but had yet to learn, that one-sixth or eighth of the United States was underlaid by beds of it.

A mountain may be justly called, in a certain sense, a solid mass of gold, for its whole body may be penetrated by and made up of auriferous quartz veins. The same may be said of iron, for in Missouri, and elsewhere, there are iron mountains, solid dykes of metal. But the strata of coal seldom exceed a yard or two in thickness, inclosed between hundreds of feet of other rock ; and where in a few favored spots, like the Anthracite region of Pennsylvania and the South of France, mammoth beds of ten and twelve fathoms are worked, upon examination they turn out to be double, treble and quadruple beds, a merely local approximation of several distinct and elsewhere often distant sheets of coal. The seams of slate and rock around the walls of the Mauch Chunk Sum mit Mine should have prepared us for the appearance of the bottom slate of all. 3.

Nothing is more surprising than the vast expanse of even the thinnest of these sheets of coal. The original deposit of carbonaceous matter seems to have been in every instance almost co-extensive with the lake or sea in which it was laid down. Nor can it be considered as satisfactorily explained by any of the hypotheses as yet advanced, how an inch or two of vegetable mould could preserve its sea-level so uniformly over such wide areas as the geographical study of our coal shows plainly that it did. Whatever the future limits to this fact may prove to be, they leave us at liberty to lay down the rule that — Each sheet of coal extends for itself and by itself as far as the mountain does in which it lies, never branching nor fork- INTERVALS — LIMESTONE. 15 ing nor rolled together, but passing through the mountain from side to side, from end to end, or cleaving down through it from summit to base, from end to end, and commonly in this latter case passing under an adjoining valley and reascending through the length and breadth of a mountain on the other side.

All coal beds do this independent of each other while conforming to each other's motions, but never coining into conflict or even actual contact, however near — except in faults, as will be shown hereafter. 4. Intervals. — Each stratum of coal lies between other similar strata of flag or freestone, conglomerate (or puddingstone), mudrock (shales or slates), carbonate of lime (or limestone) and carbonate of iron (or ironstone) ; the whole forming a series, like sheets in a ream of paper; arranged in no discoverable rational order, and apparently following each other in no fixed order, but indiscriminately alternating ; for the coal will be covered sometimes with a stratum of sandstone, sometimes with shale or slate, and sometimes with limestone ; although it very rarely happens that either limestone or iron ore in a stratified form comes into actual contact with it; however close they may be to it, they are commonly separated from it by some inches or feet of common rock, and usually this rock is slate.

It is nevertheless true that all these layers, when once their geological order of superposition has been made out for one locality, can be found again related to each other in the same general order of deposition at all neighboring localities, and sometimes even at the distance of many miles from the place where the section was first constructed. 5. Coal and Limestone. — An opinion prevails in some districts that wherever limestone exists coal cannot be far away. Nowhere is this a safe and proper statement ; and over thousands of square miles of the United States, both along the sea board and inland, along the Great Valley of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and on the plains of Kentucky and Tennessee, no statement of the fact could be less true. The greatest de velopments of limestone on the crust of the earth have had no COAL. connection whatever with the great deposits of coal, but have either preceded or followed them at long intervals of time.

Lesser limestone strata, however, do occur among the rocks which include the coal, as we might reasonably expect; for the ocean seems never to have been without the power of precipi tating lime, and seldom to have allowed any long interval of other work to elapse without returning to recreate and literally rest itself for a longer or shorter space with this. The con verse of the statement rejected above is, however, with but few exceptions, strictly true; that wherever coal beds exist there limestone beds are to be found; a few feet above or underneath them ; spreading as widely and as evenly as they ; and maintain ing with great equalness the intervals between. These limestone layers vary infinitely in character and size, from a few inches to scores of feet in thickness, and from pure hard blue rock, magnesian lime, cement layers, or a double carbonate of iron and lime, to the softest marls or clay slates containing here and there a single nodule.

And the integrity of these deposits is wonderfully well preserved over vast areas ; for the same bed on which are opened inexhaustible quarries of limestone in a dozen counties will continue to range over still other hundreds of square miles after it has diminished and impoverished itself to a thin and worthless seam. In Nova Scotia, gypsum, or sulphate of lime, is'seen to take the place of limestone or carbonate of lime, among the coal, and probably not by virtue of any subsequent change effected by the sulphuric acid set free by the decomposition of iron pyrites in the coal and neighboring rocks, but by virtue of some local deposit of sulphate of lime from volcanic springs in the bed of the carboniferous ocean; for otherwise it is hard to understand the almost universal presence of limestone and ab sence of gypsum in the coal formation.

It is true that the gypsum quarries of Southern Virginia lie against the edges of the coal, but they also there occupy great faults in the crust of the earth which bring up to the surface the lowest rocks known IRON. 17 in the ancient series, and offer a very different explanation of the presence of the gypsum. 6. Coal and Iron. — Still more universally true is it that wherever there is coal there is also iron ; either in the bed itself, or in the rocks above it or below ; either in the form of nodules of carbonate of iron, or in cubic crystals of sulphuret of iron scattered or conglobed ; or as fine disks between the faces of the coal ; or spread in thin wide plates of carbonate, splitting into masses hundreds of pounds in weight, ranging hundreds of yards or even miles in extent, and sometimes passing by insensible gradation into beds of carbonate of lime ; the local deposit of iron giving place all round the locality to a general deposit of lime.

Throughout the coal measures, ores of iron are always carbonate except when in contact with or included in the coal, in which case they are always sulphuret. Whether the sulphur ofthe original vegetation originally com bined and was precipitated with the iron in the coal, or whether in the form of free sulphuric acid, it has in course of time transformed an original precipitate of carbonate of iron into sulphuret, is a question yet. The latter is more probable, although it exactly reverses the process which has been going on from unknown dates in lead and copper mines, wherein the ore was an original sulphuret, but has been leached down to water level, and that far converted by rain-water agency into the oxide and the carbonate. But whatever may be our ex planation of the coming of the sulphur, its presence is a serious evil both to the iron and the coal ; the former it makes worthless for the furnace, the latter it injures for the forge.

Nothing is worse for the reputation of a mine than its being reputed to abound in crystals, or nodules of iron pyrites ; and more than one bed has maintained its good name by being carefully picked. The coals of the far West take a low rank, because of the amount of this injurious deposit in them. Hundreds of tons of balls and cakes of pyrites have been sold to the vitriol factories in past years from the openings opposite St. Louis. This is the only purpose to which the pyrites has been applied, 2* COAL. and gives it but local and precarious value. With this trifling exception, it is worse than worthless. Coal beds differ greatly and characteristically among themselves in their gross per centage of this sulphurous alloy, and rank accordingly. But even a nicer distinction still is made between the several plies or seams of coal in a single bed as to which one practically carries this offal of the mine, for it is rarely distributed in equal proportions through the coal, but on the contrary affects some one bench more than the others ; sometimes the lowest, some times the highest in the gangway.

If the coal bed be a large one, such a sulphur bench is either left unmined or rejected at the mine's mouth with the slaty and rocky portions of the bed. It is to the presence of sulphur that the noisome smell of coal gas is chiefly due, and the astringent and disgusting taste of springs that issue from the hill-sides that contain coal. Free sulphuric acid is always present in these, with the sulphate of iron, depositing a yellow slime in the channels of the brooks that flow from them. The carbonate of iron is as valuable as the sulphuret is worthless. When fused alone, it yields one of the best metals in the world, as is now shown at the Cambria Works in Pennsylvania. But a mixture of the sulphuret, either in the ore heap or in the coal, ruins its iron. In itself it is of every quality, clayey, sandy, or pure, fine grained or coarse, blue, gray, or chocolate tinted, breaking with a poor, loose sandstone fracture, or with a rich, fine, sharp, conchoidal, jaspery surface, showing the absence of silex, the low percentage of argil, and the superiority of its iron.

While all the furnaces of Eastern and Middle Pennsylvania run upon the oxide hæmatite ores of iron, all those of Western Pennsylvania run upon these coal measure carbonate ores. But in the majority of instances they have been built in the neighborhood of very insufficient beds, and a large proportion of those originally erected blew out for want of ore, and form picturesque ruins in secluded glens among the mountains, and on the banks of the principal affluent waters of the Monongahela and Alleghany. Although the precipitation of carbonate of iron went on during the whole IRON. coal era, and the most barren shales and sandstones abound in its concretions, yet this very abundance of deposit has gone against the miner, for it has distributed his ore beyond his reach. He sees on all sides of him the precious metal — can pick it out from every stratum in the hill before him — can find vast plates of it in the beds of torrents, at the foot of falls, and on the slopes of broken rock below the cliffs, but he is never sure of his finest exposure, his most promising outcrop, that it will not fail him before his gangway has gone in ten yards, his plates breaking up into balls, and the nodules dwindling and separating in a mass of shale.

This treachery of the beds of carbonate of iron (the ore is good enough), rather than any want of skill or capital, or tariff, has been the secret cause of the periodical and almost universal failure of iron-making in Western Pennsylvania from the beginning until now. And only when built upon wrell-known and rare deposits, such as the burr-stone ore of Clarion and Franklin Counties, or local exhibitions first well proven, as at Johnstown, Cambria County, have furnaces justified expectation. That there is incalculable wealth in iron of this kind throughout the United States no one can doubt, but in each individual case the risk of failure in the ore is very great, and must be met by careful previous ex ploration. In Scotland, the carbonate of iron attains such a degree of purity as to excel all other forms of this ore.

In the ordinary ores, 35 per cent, of protoxide of iron, with 30 per cent, of car bonic acid to be driven off in fusing, and the remaining 35 per cent, of lime, magnesia, sand, clay, sulphur, manganese, and water, to be lost in slag, is considered a fair quality of ore ; but in the best blackband, the earthy slag amounts to almost nothing, 5 or 6 per cent., and the protoxide of iron amounts to 50 — 55 per cent, of the whole. Besides which there is a per centage of free coal in some of it which helps to smelt it, while the iron that it makes is the softest and most fusible known in trade. An important drawback to these advantages, however, exists in its coldshort, or brittle quality, which no treatment COAL can cure, and by virtue of which, while it holds the first rank in castings, it is worthless where strength is requisite, and ruins other iron with which it may be mixed for almost all the purposes of the machine shop and the railroad.

We may therefore convert our repeated disappointments at its published discoveries iu this country into hearty congratulations that it scarcely exists in our coal measures ; for while it has created enormous personal fortunes, and stimulated for a time the local iron trade of Scotland and England, it has deteriorated iron on both sides of the Atlantic : whereas the time has fully come for the successful and profitable treatment of the common car bonate at innumerable points, either pure or mixed with the bog oxide, or with the hæmatites, or with the fossil ore, fused with the raw semi-anthracites of Shamokin, Broad Top, and Cumberland, or the coked bituminous coals of the great West, and fluxed with limestone out of the same hill-side from which both the coal and the iron are obtained. So much of the iron manufactured in Great Britain, especially in Scotland, is made from the carboniferous ores, that the following sums of the three ingredients used in the manu facture officially reported, may be employed to obtain a practical average of their relative proportion, such as is frequently inquired for.