Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/52

 near to a branch of the Merrimec by Mr. Bradbury[16] and myself, as well as others, in the winter of 1809. It promises every important requisite for the production of the purest flint-glass, and exists in inexhaustible quantities.

{19} 16-19th.] Still at Pittsburgh, waiting for an opportunity to descend the river, which was now almost impracticable in consequence of the lowness of the water.

19th.] This morning I took a walk to Grant's Hill,[17] from whence there is a delightful view of Pittsburgh, and on the hill itself some very pleasing rural retirements of the wealthy citizens.

My attention, as usual, was directed to the surrounding minerals and stratification, which are no unimportant matters in the economy of this settlement. The coal basin, or rather bed, which has been so long wrought on this hill, about six feet thick, is almost exactly horizontal, and consequently worked by a simple parallel drift without making any inconvenient quantity of water. The coal bassets out towards the edge of the hill, and so near the summit as to present scarcely any other overlay than a thin shale, more or less friable, and no sandstone. The dip, such as it is, is to the north of east, but scarcely manifest. It is bituminous or inflammable, and of a very good quality. Beneath this single bed of coal, occurs a fine grained, micaceous sandstone, rendered greenish from an admixture of chlorite earth; still lower in the series appears a compact calcareous rock, in which I did not perceive any reliquiæ. At the southern extremity of the hill, where it approaches the Monongahela, the laminated