1887.] ^* [Stevenson, 



The Fault of Draper Jlowitain. 



At a mile and a half, or perhaps a little less, south from Reed creek on 

 the road leading from Wytheville southward over Lick mountain, the 

 Knox Limestones are much disturbed, being thrown into several close 

 folds. On the Valley pike, prolmbly a mile and a half from the first 

 crossing of Reed creek, the upper limestones of the Knox are succeeded 

 by red shales belonging at the base of the group ; the fault rapidly de- 

 velops and passes along the northerly side of Draper mountain, where it 

 brings the lower beds of the Potsdam at the south into contact with the 

 base of the Lower Carboniferous, and further eastward with the Chemung. 

 It quickly diminishes eastward and soon is in the Knox limestone. An 

 anticlinal is crossed by the Valley pike very near Newbern ; it may rep- 

 resent the fault. 



The structure of this fault is fairly well shown at several localities, but 

 the conditions are complicated for much of the distance by two cross- 

 faults coming the one from the north-west and the other, if the map be 

 right, almost from the north. A section on and near the Valley pike in 

 Wythe county is represented by Fig. 2, but the section crossing Draper 

 mountain near the line between Wythe and Pulaski counties, as repre- 

 sented in Fig. 3, shows a very ditferent condition, for here the Max 

 Meadows cross-fault is seen. The Knox limestones certainly describe an 

 anticlinal near the fault, but whether or not they dip away at the fault 

 could not be ascertained. /The Potsdam forms the heart of this very 

 rugged mountain and is dipping south-eastwardly at from thirty-five to 

 nearly sixty degrees. Further east, where the road crosses Draper moun- 

 tain to Pulaski, the structure is as given in Fig. 4. The structure is dis- 

 tinct along this road for the Devonian shales are turned up at the fault 

 so as to be actually conformable in dip with the lower shales of the Pots- 

 dam. The exposures along this road in descending the mountain are 

 practically continuous, yet it will be found difiicult to determine accu- 

 rately the place of the fault, so closely do the shales resemble each other 

 and so nearly exact is the conforraability of dip. In all probability, the 

 Vespertine is brought into contact with the lower beds of the Potsdam at 

 a short distance west from the road, so that this is the most formidable 

 fault yet noticed. The Pulaski fault cuts off the Devonian and Carbon- 

 iferous, and the Lower Silurian beds are on both sides of the fault beyond 

 Peak creek. 



The Area between the Norfolk and Western Railroad and the Walker Moun- 

 tain Fault. 



The village of Wytheville, county seat of Wythe, is built on a ridge 

 marking the course of the Wytheville synclinal, which, beginning cer- 

 tainly more than six miles westward from Wytheville, extends east-north- 

 east to where it is cut olf by the JLax Meadows fault north from Max 

 Meadows station. A well-marked anticlinal bounds it on the southerly 

 side, which is crossed by the Valley pike near Kent's mills, three miles 



