i882. 159 Tratis. N. V. Ac. Scz. 



great devotion to botany, and of his long interest in the Academy 

 and its work. 



The President also announced the death of the eminent Mr. 

 Charles R. Darwin, Honorary Member of the Academy, and dis- 

 cussed the great importance of his labors in enlarging the modes of 

 investigation in biology. 



Prof. John J. Stevenson then read the following paper : 



THE MINERAL RESOURCES OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA. 



The Virginias were surveyed by Prof. W. B. Rogers and a com- 

 petent corps of assistant geologists during the five years previous to 

 1841, but the final report was not published and only a few copies of 

 the annual reports were printed. The latter are now so rare that prac- 

 tically the only available information respecting the geology of Virginia 

 is that obtained by examinations made for private parties or corpora- 

 tions. 



The region to which attention is called extends from New River to 

 the Tennessee line, and lies between the Great Valley of Virginia at 

 the southeast and the State line at the northwest. It is drained by the 

 Clinch and Holston Rivers, except in the northeast, where the waters 

 flow ioto New River, a tributary of the Ohio. 



The surface is rugged throughout, there being nine ranges of moun- 

 tains between Bristol on the Tennessee border and the Kentucky line, 

 a distance of little more than forty-five miles. Some of these ranges 

 are very abrupt, and water-gaps are widely separated ; so that between 

 the Tennessee line and New River, a distance of not far from 120 

 miles, only two really good railroad routes have been found from the 

 Valley to the coal-field, and these are available only for narrow-gauge 

 roads. 



This ruggedness is due to upthrow faults, of which seven occur be- 

 tween the Valley and the coal-field, a distance of about thirty miles. 

 The Medina, the great mountain-making rock of the Appalachian 

 region, is brought up four times in the interval. The effect of these 

 faults on the agricultural conditions is curious, for the area is divided 

 into alternating poor and rich valleys ; the former underlaid by the Upper 

 Silurian or Devonian shales, while the latter show the Lower Silurian 

 limestones. Some of these faults are stupendous, bringing the Knox 

 sandstone into contact with the Quinnimont Group, a vertical extent of 

 not less than 8000 feet. While these faults have led to the removal of 

 the coal beds almost wholly from the faulted area, they have made fair 

 amends by bringing to the surface more than once the ore-bearing 



