479 



[White. 



Notes on the Geology of West Virginia. By I. 0. White. 



(Bead before the American Philosophical Society, October 20, 1882. ) 



The Geology of the Cheat river Canon along its course through Laurel Hill and 

 Chestnut Ridge, between Albright {near Eingicood), in Preston county, and 

 Ice's Ferry, in Monongalia county. 



The material for the present paper has been gradually accumulated on 

 class excursions from the University during the last five years. 



Cheat river takes its rise on the summit of that great plateau, near the 

 Randolph-Pocahontas line, from which so many large streams radiate to 

 every point of the compass, the Ells, Greenbrier, James, Potomac, Monon- 

 gahela and Cheat, all having the source of their principal branches on this 

 plateau at an altitude of more than 3000 feet above the sea. 



From this elevated divide, several branches — Dry, Laurel, Globe and 

 Shaver's — flow northward in narrow, parallel valleys, into the southern 

 portion of Tucker county, where meeting Black Fork from the north-east, 

 they unite to form the main Cheat river which with many windings con- 

 tinues its general course almost due north to Albright, the south-eastern 

 limit of the district under examination. Here, however, it veers to the 

 north-west and maintains that general direction for the next twenty -five 

 miles to Ice's Ferry, in Monongalia county, where it again veers north 

 and unites with the Monongahela river just north from the W. Va.-Penna. 

 line. 



At Albright, the channel of the river is in the bottom of the syncline 

 between the Viaduct and Laurel Hill axes, and its north-west course for 

 twenty-five miles carries it squarely through Laurel Hill, Chestnut Ridge 

 and the great synclinal plateau between them. Throughout this twenty 

 miles (about twenty -five by the river). Cheat river flows in a wild canon 

 cut down 1000'-1500' below the summits of the bordering mountains whose 

 slopes are so rocky and precipitous that but a single human dwelling is in 

 sight along the river, from where one enters the canon below Albright, 

 until he emerges from it near Ice's Ferry. 



The Great Conglomerate, or No. XII, carrying the Lower Coal Measures 

 on its top, crowns the steepest portion of the canon throughout its entire 

 length, and its immense boulders constantly block the narrow channel of 

 the river, thus giving a wildness and grandeur to the scenery unsurpassed 

 anywhere along the course of this famous stream. 



But unrivaled as is the scenic beauty of this canon, it presents still 

 greater attractions for the geologist in the splendid natural exposures of 

 the Great Conglomerate and Sub-carboniferous rocks that it afiords ; for 

 under the arches of Laurel and Chestnut Ridges one may find many almost 

 clean exposures from the top of No. XII down nearly to the base of No. 

 X. To place some of these magnificent sections before those interested in 

 Carboniferous geology is the principal object of this paper, and in order to 

 accomplish this systematically we shall begin with the section at Ice's 

 Ferry, and pass south-eastward up the Cheat river to Albright. 



