Stevenson.] IVZi [March 18, 



son or Clinton, but on the northerly side is a mass of shale like that form- 

 ing the lower part of the Potsdam on Lick mountain. 



These underlying shales are well shown on the northerly side of 

 Draper's mountain, where, for a few feet directly under the sandstone 

 they are almost black ; but for the most part they are grayish, sandy, and 

 in rather thick layers, so that they might almost be termed shaly sand- 

 stones. Their south-easterly dip is as abrupt as that of the sandstone on 

 the other side of the summit. 



The Draper Mountain fault passes about one-third of a mile west north- 

 west from the crest of the mountain, and on this road brings the lower 

 beds of the Potsdam into contact with the lower Chemung shales. The 

 Chemung sandstones form a bold ridge beyond the old Pepper road, in 

 which the brownish beds contain many fossils. The Chemung conglom- 

 erate was not seen in place as the foliage was very dense, but its frag- 

 ments are numerous. Vespertine beds form the next, a low ridge in 

 which traces of coal have been observed and the bluish sandstones have 

 been quarried. Thence for a little way there are no exposures, but in the 

 bank behind the Maple Shade Inn the veined limestone of the Knox 

 group is quarried, while just beyond Peak creek, immediately north from 

 the railroad station in Pulaski, limestone belonging to the same group is 

 exposed. These limestones are shown on the country road to the Robin- 

 son tract, a distance of about six miles, and that beautiful tract must also 

 be underlaid^ by the Lower Silurian limestone; but no examination to 

 ascertain this was made. 



The limit between the shales and shaly sandstones of Devonian and 

 Carboniferous at the west and Lower Silurian at the east was not followed 

 out in detail, but it passes almost midway between the Altoona coal road 

 and the county road in Pulaski ; it is a little way west from the Poplar 

 Hill church, four or five miles from Pulaski. Beyond that northward, it 

 evidently lies east from the Altoona railroad. 



The Altoona coal mines are in Pulaski county, at eleven miles by rail 

 from Pulaski, though the actual distance is much less. The bed now 

 mined is the second of the Vespertine beds, which varies in thickness from 

 four to twenty-two feet, in the latter case including not a little shale. The 

 pressure has crushed the coal to such an extent as to destroy in great 

 measure its marketable value, but a large quantity is mined each year for 

 use at the Salt works in Smyth county. At one time the third bed, said to be 

 four feet thick, was mined here, but work on it has been discontinued, only 

 a small quantity being taken out to run the locomotives on the coal road. 

 The coal from this bed is far superior to that from the other. 



A road follows the bottom of Peak creek for nearly two miles below 

 Pulaski, and then leaves the creek to cross the easterly point of Draper's 

 mountain to the Valley pike, which it reaches at somewhat more than a 

 mile and a half southward from Peak creek. The Vespertine ridge is cut 

 off by the Pulaski fault before this road reaches the line, but the Devonian 

 ridge continues beyond the road. The Draper Mountain fault is greatly 



