Lesley.] 



46 



[April. 



shales.* At Proctor, XII is only 60 feet, while the XI 

 shale mass is even 296 feet thick. f 



Fisr. 9. 



Now I measured the cliffs on Paint Creek in many places, 

 and fomid the most striking variations. At Davis's, XII 

 is 230 feet thick, the whole of it visible, in a wall composed 

 of two members. Sometimes an upper unbroken wall, of 50 

 or 60 feet, is retired a little behind the lower and still more 

 massive wall, which rises directly from the bed of the stream. 

 I shall allude to this division afterwards. But the bottom 

 plate is distinctly seen at the water, and the top plate forms 

 perfectly level overhanging eaves to the gorge, on both sides. 

 Only four or five miles above Davis's, at Wash. Webb's ford- 

 ing, the top plate of XII is only 85 feet above the water, 

 and an oil spring issues 10 feet above the water, from under 

 what seems to be the lowest member of XII, 30 feet thick ; 

 for at James Williams's, opposite, shales and oil appear. See 

 Fig. 10. At Lyon's place, at the mouth of Open Fork, two 

 or three miles above Webb's, the top plate of XII is 140 feet 

 above the creek ; and although the water runs over sandrock, 

 yet shale is struck a few feet down in the well, and the sub- 

 carboniferous limestone at a lower depth ; while the rocks 

 are normally horizontal up stream, and the ore and coal shales 

 of XI are visible half a mile distant in that direction. I 

 have not the least doubt of the rapid variability of No. 



* Kentucky Keport, Vol. IV, p. 454. 



f Idem, p. 478. 



