1862.] 37 [Lesley. 



In these and other mines on this side of the river, the variety of 

 "sand-coal" always appears as a constant element in the section, but 

 occupying sometimes the top and sometimes the middle or bottom of 

 the bed. Everywhere, also, the coal of the small bed A (which has 

 not this aspect) is recognized as the best. The lower part of B is 

 the most reliable and productive. At the eastern end of the district, 

 also the pebble-rock underneath A, is no longer recognizable, having 

 slowly degenerated to a bed of clay slate or soft sandstone. But in 

 its place, and at a much lower depth (about 200 feet) below A, ap- 

 pears a massive stratum of flinty gray sand-rock ; from under which, 

 at one place, painted water issues, and a coal seam is reported. This 

 may correspond to a black slate stratum which is seen at one place 

 (near Cloyd's) about 150 yards below coal A. Two beds at this 

 horizon are also reported to exist at Shlusher's mines, in the little 

 basin opposite Blacksburg. 



In Price's Mountain, between Blacksburg and Christiansburg, the 

 two coal beds with their slates, and the red shale formation above 

 them, have been curiously let down, still in an anticlinal form, between 

 two faults, so as to be inclosed between two valleys of Lower Silurian 

 Limestone. (See Fig. Gr.) 



These coal beds have been long known and dug at old openings 

 long deserted and fallen in. Later gangways show the same coal 

 as that in Brush Mountain, but more anthracitic, frangible, and 

 crushed, dipping on the southern side of the anticlinal 25°J south 

 10° east; and on the northern, 70°-80°J. Over Kyle's coal are 

 thin, blue, shaly sand-rocks, full of fossil plants. Three or four se- 

 parate beds appear to exist, but the dips vary somewhat. The area is 

 small, and the coal of little or no value to a railroad trade. 



The coal of Montgomery county, then, is a soft anthracite of a 

 sandy grain, disposed to slaty structure, passing into a compact, 

 smooth, conchoidal, quasicannel, but never, so far as I have seen, a 

 true cannel coal. In one or two instances I noticed a prismatic struc- 

 ture, where the coal would be called and sold for semi-bituminous. 

 In general it is a semi-anthracite, or a soft, flaming, white ash an- 

 thracite. 



Portions of the beds exhibit numerous specks of sulphuret of iron, 

 in fiat discs, in the joints. No cubic crystals. 



The chief use of the coal must be domestic, although its harder 

 parts can compete in the llichmond market with Richmond coal, with 

 blacksmiths and limeburners, and probably puddlers and furnace- 

 keepers. But it will not be likely to go to sea, on account of its slack 



