Mr. Whitworth says that the coal improved as he went in, and he is quite hopeful about this seam. But his record reads to me like the description of a slide; still it may not be so.

The show upon the whole, as seen by me, was not satisfactory—and yet the beds might possibly improve inward; and if the coal should coke well, it might pay to wash it; as could easily be done at Raging River.

Snoqualmie Mountain Coal Group.The Snoqualmie Coal Group outcrops some hundreds of feet up the west side of Snoqualmie Mountain, and about three miles southwest of Hop Ranch. The outcrop has been traced perhaps one mile. There are five seams here running north and south with the strike of the mountain rocks. The seams dip west at an angle of 45°, i.e., away from the axis of the mountain.

Details.Seam No. 3 is the third seam from the bottom. A side entry had been driven in on the coal for 60 feet, but water now barred the entrance and prevented a thorough scrutiny of the seam. Its thickness was about 3 feet 6 inches, of which there was a band of lignitic coal of three-quarters of an inch near the top, and five inches of the same near the bottom. The weathered outcrop of this, as of the coal-beds of Washington Territory generally, had a brownish hue, but the fresh surfaces showed a good black bituminous coal. It lies firm and regular in its bed. When dug and handled, it goes to small pieces, and may generally be crushed to powder in the hand; which, of itself, is no bad sign of a good coking coal.

Good coking coal.Seam No. 4, the second seam from the bottom, descending:

FT.INS.
Roof, Slate20
Bone20
Coal06
Fine-grained Sandstone, average22
Natural Coke06
Bituminous Shale06
Coal42
Bottom, Sandstone.

The coal of this seam is soft, black and lustrous. An entry was driven in 50 feet, which required much propping, the roof being bad. At the end of this distance we came squarely against a wall of sandstone, showing a fault. At this point six inches of the top coal is thrown up vertically, which showed that the seam thus far had dropped, and that the continuation was to be looked for at a higher level. Mining upward through the soft material, the coal had been again struck at an elevation of 16 feet, but not the full thickness of the seam, and not in its true position; but after following it upward 4 feet more the seam was found in its natural state.

There seems to be no slate in this seam, but occasionally there is found in it a ball of "nigger-head," or hard sulphurous matter, from the size of a man's head down.

An experiment of coking this coal in a small pit at the mouth of this bank was made by Mr. Kirke and his coal-bank manager, with as satisfactory results as could be expected from so imperfect a trial.Also good coking coal. I found pieces of the coke lying near, and saw better samples which have been brought from here. While, of course, the coke thus made is not the best quality, it certainly promises well.

Large and valuable bed.Seam No. 2, descending: