DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4651#0045
IN THE IHJRMIIAN EMPIRE.
35
ones, but more contracted below. When a miner
has pierced six or more feet of the shaft, a series
of these square frames are piled on each other,
and regularly added to at top; the whole gradu-
ally sinking as he deepens the shaft, and securing
him against the falling in of the sides. The soil
or strata to be pierced is, first, a light sandy loam
intermixed with fragments of quartz, silex, $-c.
Secondly, a friable sand-stone easily wrought, with
thin horizontal strata of a concrete of martial ore,
talc*, and indurated argil, at from ten or fifteen
feet from the surface, and also from each other,
as there are several of these veins in the great
body of free-stone. Thirdly, at twenty cubits,
more or less, from the surface, and immediately
below the free-stone, a pale blue argillaceous
earth (schista) appears, impregnated with the pe-
troleum, and smelling strongly of it. This, they
say, is very difficult to work, and grows harder as
they get deeper, ending in schist and slate, such
as is found covering veins of coal in Europe.
Below this schist, at the depth of 130 cubits,
is coal. I procured some (intermixed with sul-
phur and pyrites), which had been taken from a
well deepened a few days before my arrival; but
* The talc has this singularity ; it is denticulated, its lamina
being perpendicular to the horizontal lamina of the argil on
which it is seated.
d2
35
ones, but more contracted below. When a miner
has pierced six or more feet of the shaft, a series
of these square frames are piled on each other,
and regularly added to at top; the whole gradu-
ally sinking as he deepens the shaft, and securing
him against the falling in of the sides. The soil
or strata to be pierced is, first, a light sandy loam
intermixed with fragments of quartz, silex, $-c.
Secondly, a friable sand-stone easily wrought, with
thin horizontal strata of a concrete of martial ore,
talc*, and indurated argil, at from ten or fifteen
feet from the surface, and also from each other,
as there are several of these veins in the great
body of free-stone. Thirdly, at twenty cubits,
more or less, from the surface, and immediately
below the free-stone, a pale blue argillaceous
earth (schista) appears, impregnated with the pe-
troleum, and smelling strongly of it. This, they
say, is very difficult to work, and grows harder as
they get deeper, ending in schist and slate, such
as is found covering veins of coal in Europe.
Below this schist, at the depth of 130 cubits,
is coal. I procured some (intermixed with sul-
phur and pyrites), which had been taken from a
well deepened a few days before my arrival; but
* The talc has this singularity ; it is denticulated, its lamina
being perpendicular to the horizontal lamina of the argil on
which it is seated.
d2