Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/58

 *cinnati. At the northern extremity of the town there is a very productive bed of coal, and equally horizontal with that of Pittsburgh; its thickness is about six feet, and as it occurs beneath the limestone it must of course be considered as a second bed. Every where along the banks of the river, particularly at this low stage we perceive adventitious boulders and pebbles of sienite, which cannot have originated nearer than the mountains of Canada, situated beyond the lakes. Proceeding about four and a half miles from Wheeling, we took up our night's residence at a cabin near to the outlet of M'Mahon's creek.[22]

27th.] To-day I again observed a bed of coal in the bank of the Ohio, worked beneath the limestone, situated nearly opposite to Little Grave creek.[23] This superincumbent limestone does not appear to abound with organic remains, and is nearly horizontal, with a slight dip, perhaps 10º, to the south-east. Ten or 12 miles further, the same coal bed still bassets out from beneath the calcareous rock, and so near to the present low level of the river as not to admit of being worked at any other stage of the water. The shale (or bituminous slate clay) above and below the coal {25} is extremely superficial, being only a few inches in thickness, and interspersed with small masses of bitumen and reliquiæ which imitate charred wood, but are destitute of the characterizing cross grain.

At the mouth of Little Grave creek we landed, to view