Clarion. - Area, 570 square miles; population in 1880, 40,328. Forty-six
separate hill tops in the five southern townships are capped by small
patches of Mahoning sandstone. All the rest of the surface of the southern
half of the county, that is south of the Clarion River, consists of
the Productive coal measures; and these also make the hills of the other
half except near the Forest county line, where the Conglomerate occupies
the whole ground. The conglomerate crops out along the whole course
of the Clarion; along Piney creek and both its main branches; along
Mill creek and all its branches; along Turkey Run, Beaver Creek, Canoe
Creek, Deer Creek, and its two Paint creek branches, and along Toby
creek, and Tom's Run; makes, in fact, the whole county a labyrinth of
wild and rocky glens, sunk in a tableland of coal measures, the general
upper surface of which ranges between 1400' and 1500' A.T. (the Allegheny
Valley railroad at Emlenton being 905', the Clarion railroad bridge
1098', (water 1042',) and the three railroad summits between Emlenton
and Clarion, 1499', 1466', and 1435'.) The greater erosion of the coal
measures from the northern half of the county has been caused by a general
elevation of the surface, and of the rocks also, north-eastward as shown
by the fact that levels for a railroad from Shippensburg to Kane begin
with 1235', read 1539' at Jamestown, and then show successive gradient
summits of 1665', 1704', 1788', 1813', 1823', and 1909' at the Elk county
line. This gradual rise of the conglomerate lets the underlying shales
of XI come to the surface in the Clarion river bed 2 miles east of Clarion,
and continue above water level up the river into Forest county. Five
slight but well-defined anticlinal rolls, and five very shallow basins
cross the county in a N.E.-S.W. direction, the anticlinal axes running
through Millerstown, Brady's, Bend, Kellersburg, Anthony's Bend, and
Brookville. The Freeport Upper coal varying from 21/2
to 43/4 feet thick has been largely mined for
the iron furnaces. Its limestone, 2' to 5' thick is sometimes absent.
A stratum of iron ball ore below the limestone has been extensively
mined near W. Freedom. The Freeport Lower coal, a fine bed 51/2
to 61/2 feet thick, unfortunately does not extend
far into this county, but has been extensively mined at several points;
its carbon ranging from 51 to 56 p.c., its gas from 35 to 40, its ash
from 2.6 to 6.2, its sulphur from1 to 2, and its water from 1.3 to 4.7
p.c. Its underlying "flag" limestone, 1' to 6' thick, is seldom seen.
The great Freeport Lower sandstone, hard, massive, often coarse, 75'
thick, is grandly exposed at Brady's Bend, but also forms crags and
bluffs along the vales of the southern townships. The Kittanning Upper
coal is every where either too thin or too poor, and is destitute of
its upper canned coal bench; and its underlying "Cement" limestone,
3' thick, exposed at Fairmount on Middle Run, is really an iron ore
(Carb. Lime 25, Carb. Iron 37.) The Kittanning Middle coal is seldom
workable, but the Kittanning Lower coal extends far and wide, and is
an excellent workable steam-coal bed, 31/2 to
5' thick, cokes well, its vol. mat. ranging from 36 to 41 p.c. Fifteen
feet under it spreads the Ferriferous limestone over two thirds of the
county, 5' to 15' thick, carrying almost everywhere the rich "buhrstone"
iron ore, which is merely the more or less metamorphosed uppermost layer
of the whole deposit; is ordinarily only from 6 to 14 inches thick,
but sometimes swells to 2,3,4, and even 6 feet, and with it is always
obtained a variable amount of ball ore from the overlying shale. By
reason of the extensive outcrop of this ore Clarion county possessed
thirty charcoal iron furnaces- Catfish, Pike, Wildcat, Black Fox, St.
Charles, Prospect, Buchanan, Sligo, Madison, Martha, Monroe, Washington,
Limestone, Clarion, Richland, Stapley, Jefferson, Eagle, Tippecanoe,
Beaver, Shippenville, Mary Ann, Deer Creek, Elk, Lucinda, Hemlock, Clinton,
Licking, Helen, and Corsica (or Mt. Pleasant,) most of them now abandoned
for want of wood or from inability to compete with great establishments
elsewhere. The Clarion coal bed, where its two benches are united, is
4' or even 6' thick, but the benches separate as much as 25', the upper
bench gradually rising to touch the underside of the Ferriferous limestone.
The Brookville bed, 40 feet lower, is worthless, except along the border
of Jefferson County, and even there is of poor quality. The conglomerate
is triple and contains the Mercer coal, thin and poor, and the Mercer
ball ore, mined a little. The Lower (i.e. Southern) oil belt
crossing the river from Butler county at Parker City, runs straight
N. 300 E. to St. Petersburg and curving to N. 450
E. before reaching Shippenville where it practically ends. As first
developed, it was very narrow, but in 1877 several side pools were discovered.
The total area including the pools is 20,000 acres; the actual productive
belt underlies only 7,000 acres. The 3d oil sand, or oil rock proper,
lies (the top of it) at Shippenville 370' and at Parker 60' above ocean
level (a S.W. fall of 310' in 15 miles.) The top of the 3d oil sand
is 280' beneath the top of the 1st oil sand, and 1100' beneath the Ferriferous
limestone. The presence of 40' of red rock mid-way between the 1st and
3d oil sands is a marked feature of the well records. The annual production
commenced in 1866 with 3,000 barrels, rose in 1871 to 182,500, and in
1872 to 1,100,000, and culminated in 1877 with 2,372,500, declining
in 1879 to 730,000.
From: A geological hand atlas of the sixty-seven
counties of Pennsylvania :embodying the results of the field work
of the survey, from 1874 to 1884. By J. P. Lesley. (Report of
progress (Geological Survey of Pennsylvania), v. X ) Harrisburg, PA
: Board of commissioners for the second geological survey, 1885.
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