102

are "oats and buckwheat, rye, Indian corn and wheat. The-
alluvial bottom lands grow principally corn and oats; buck-
wheat and rye are confined more especially to the mountain-
ous parts of the country, whilst wheat is almost exclusively
confined to the clay limestone lands in the eastern part of the
county and the Cove in the western part of the county. This -
county would hold but an inferior rank in the State, had it
to depend solely on its agricultural resources.

The grand feature in the resources of this county is its
mineral wealth. The mineral resources of this county na-
turally divide themselves into coal, iron ore and fire-brick
clay : either of these would be a great source of wealth to
any one county, in this we have them united, and the result
is a combination of resources unequaled in any other county.

The Coal Lands of Alleghany County.—The main coal field

of Alleghany county is embraced between Dan's Mountain,

on the east, the slopes of Savage Mountain on the west, the

Potomac river on the south and Mason's and Dixon's line on

the north.

The whole extent of this, called the Eastern Coal Field of
Alleghany, is about 30 miles in length on an average of 4 in.
breadth, making altogether 120 square miles of this coal field
in the State of Maryland.

The Veins of this Coal Basin.—These amount to about fif-
teen, many of them, however, have no economical value, and.
in a report of this kind are no proper subjects for discussion.

The chief veins in the eastern coal field of Alleghany
county are, first a three foot vein ;—2d, the Big Vein or Fif-
teen foot Vein, as it has been called ;—3d, The Eight Foot
Vein,—this is two distinct veins of coal, separated by a bed,
of fire-brick clay about two feet in thickness ;—4th, The Six
Foot Vein; 5th, The Forty Inch Vein,—this is about forty-
four inches in thickness ;—A vein about two feet in thick-
ness,—there are others to the amount of five or six, perhaps
more, lying at different depths below.

The veins of coal in this region, which we have to consid--
er as of present importance to the State, are the Big Vein,
the six foot vein and the forty-four inch vein. Epecially
worthy of consideration is the Big Vein, as its coal is that
which has given the high reputation to our Maryland coal,
that which constitutes, to a great extent, the real capital of
most of the corporations in this county, and which must be
for a long time the basis for valuable tolls on the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal. The thickness of this vein varies in differ-
ent sections of the coal field, being thinner on its north-east-
ern border, on the extreme edge of which It is about nine-
feet; at Frostburg its workable thickness is about eleven
feet, whilst in the middle and south-western sections, four-
teen are claimed by those holding properiy there. The av-