Part I. Report of progress in 1869, by J. S. Newberry, chief geologist. Part II. Report of progress in the second district, by E. B. Andrews, assist. geologist. Part III. Report on geology of Montgomery County, by Edward Orton, assist. geologist.

112
the coke, thus formed, be crushed by the imposed burden, the draft of the
furnace will be choked, and the working of the furnace seriously hindered.
Some of the analyses show the coke to be firm and compact, while
others indicate a pulverulent character. This question can best be solved
by actual experiment. Should such a tendency to brittleness be found
to exist, the difficulty can be obviated. While in the Cleveland iron district, in England, the coke used is so compact and firm that it supports
an enormous pressure in furnaces (sometimes more than one hundred feet
in height), yet elsewhere, as in Staffordshire, where the coke is friable,
and the ore also, and in South Wales, where the anthracite used decrepitates to such an extent as to produce the same difficulty in the furnace,
the furnaces are low, and the superincumbent weight of the "charges"
is distributed over a broader base. To sucure combustion in such furnaces, a larger number of twyers is used, and, that the blast may reach
the center, the base is often made elliptical instead of round. The difficulty of soft coke being a physical one, it may be overcome by such mechanical arrangements as suggest themselves to intelligent metallurgists.
It might be found desirable to mix with the coal of the great Nelsonville seam a portion of hard coke obtained from some other coal, although
such necessity appears to me improbable.
There are in places two seams of coal above the horizon of the Nelsonville seam of workable thickness, the coke of which may answer such a
purpose. The coal of one of the seams is reported by Prof. Wormley to
make a very compact coke. The coal of the other seam has not yet been
analyzed.
That the time is not far distant when the coal of this greatest of Ohio coal
seams will be largely used in the manufacture of iron, there can be little doubt.
The coal is already shipped from Nelsonville and vicinity to Chicago,
and to other points on the Northern Lakes, from which the rich Lake Superior ores could be brought back as return freight. Limited quantities
of lower coal measure ores are to be found in the neighborhood of the
coal, especially in the strata lying between the horizon of the Nelsonville coal and the base of the coal measures, which could be used to great
advantage as a mixture with the richer northern ores. Should these native ores prove like those used in Jackson, Lawrence and other counties
in our furnace district of southern Ohio, the mixture would tend to counteract the red short quality of the-Superior ores.
A large blast furnace is now in process of erection at Columbus, by S.
Baird, Esq., and others, to use the coal from the great seam. Lake Superior ores are to be mixed with such native ores as can be the most coveniently obtained from our lower coal measures. Limestone for flux can
be obtained in ample supply from the great quarries in the immediate
neighborhood of Columbus.