The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1913-02-17
WHAT is COAL LAND?
Geological Survey Outlines Manner in
Which Coal Deposits Occur.

IL is often the unpleasant duty of the
United States geological survey to re-
fuse to reclassify on non-coal land areas
that have been classified as coal land, be-
cause the evidence and afiidavits sub
mltted or Redistribution are inadequate,
that word of explanation on what is
considered adequate" may make clearer
the position of the survey in the matter.
1t is a widespread popular impression
that ii coal is found outcroppng ON a
tract, the land is coal land, and that if
no coal is to be found outeropping the
land is non-coal land. If this were true
probably more than one-half of the coal
produced in the country lin some states
more than 95 per cent? would be COM
ing from mines not on coal land.
As an illustration, 1906 mines in In
diana in 1908 produced II, 997 ,304 tons
of coal, OF these 1876 mines, 10 were
working the coal from the outerop and
produced 400,733 tons, or little over
per cent of the total The rest was
mined from land, the surface of which
showed no coal. In Illinois the percent
age is still less, and in both states the
average production OF the mines work
ing on the outcrop is small, compared
with the average of all the mines. The
percentage of coal worked from the out
crop is greater in Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, and the southern Appalachian
states than in the two just cited. but not
much if any greater in the Michigan
field, the western interior field. or some
others of the large fields of the country.
1t is true that in many of the fields
when first exploited mines were mostly
driven in on the outcrop, but for two
reasons that condition has greatly
changed. First the coal close to the out
crop has been mined out; and second, aft
Ell time it has been found to be cheap |
pr to mine the coal from shafts sunk to |
the bed from point some distance back |
from the outcrop those to haul the coal,
water, and waste up the slope of the
bed as it pitches into the ground.
If, therefore, any producing coal field ,
5 examined there will usually be found /
/ belt of outerop in which the coalbear-
ng rocks rise to the surface of the
ground, and outside of that belt an area.
Which may amount to thousands of
,quare miles, where the Goals are all be-
ow the surface and the surface rocks
nay even be of entirely different age
md perhaps not coal bearing at all. In
indiana shafts have been sunk to coal
'eds at a depth of $50 feet without any
preliminary drilling where the coal bed
lid not outcrop nearer than Is miles,
nd many Of the mines of Illinois are
5 to 30 miles from the nearest out
rop of the coal they are working.
In classifying land as to its coal char
cter few general principles are in
oived:
|. If the land is known to be under !
lin only by groups OF rocks known no h
here to contain coal. the land is as |
umed not to be underlain by coal and to /
G non-coal land II
2 Ii land is known to be underlain
y one or more groups of rocks known to :
1ntain workable beds of coal. and a !
tudy of the dips shows that those d
roups are not too deep for the Goals i
1ey contain to be worked the land may y
e presumed to be coal land. IN
In nearly all cases where public lands .
ave been withdrawn pending examina- o
on and classification it is known or be- :
eyed that the land is underlain by n
cups OF rocks known elsewhere to con. !,
lin workable beds of coal. In probably n
majority of cases it is also known or .
ter examinations demonstrate that /
al camples collected in definite pre-
ribed way, supplemented when neces- =
.rY by such second-hand data as appear >,
be accurate and reliable and to be in =,
cord with the personal observations of h
e field men.