Stevenson.] iUo [March 18, 



nothing was seen aside from the shales and sandstones until the Blacks- 

 burg and Christiansburg road was reached, on which the southerly fault 

 of Price's mountain was crossed at a little way north from Mr. Stevens's 

 house, where Umbral shales and Knox limestones are in contact. 



Directly north from Mr. Stevens's house, the road from the coal mines 

 unites with that leading northward to Blacksburg and Newport. Expo- 

 sures are very indefinite on this road as it crosses Price's mountain, 

 though the Lower Carboniferous shales are shown in several shallow cuts. 

 No coal blossoms were seen along the road and no coal is mined near it. 



The Knox limestones are reached at somewhat more than two miles 

 south from Blacksburg, but exposures on this old erosion plane are few 

 and widely separated, so that nothing can be told respecting the character 

 of the rocks. 



The place of the "Walker Mountain fault is about half a mile south from 

 Tom's creek, where Umbral shales are thrown over to almost vertical dip, 

 while the Knox limestones are shown within a few rods with much gentler 

 dip. Coal is mined at several places on Tom's creek both above and 

 below this road. The dip at a pit immediately south from the creek is 

 twenty-fire degrees toward the south-east. The bed is thin, being reported 

 as follows : 



Coal V 



Clay 0' 6" 



Coal 1' 6" 



but the bed is thicker at other pits and, at some, it has three feet of work- 

 able coal. The crush has been severe and the coal of the Tom's creek 

 mines is so loosely laminated that the laminte are easily separated by the 

 fingers. 



The dip becomes gentler as the road ascends Brush or Little Walker 

 mountain. Sandstones with dip of ten to twelve degrees make the road- 

 bed for a long distance and form spurs extending southward from the 

 mountain. The passage to the Chemung is through these yellowish sand- 

 stones, which appear to be thicker than on New river. The upper beds of 

 the Chemung are not shown near the road ; fragments of the upper con- 

 glomerate are numerous, but the rock was not seen in place. It however 

 forms the crest of Brush mountain and Chemung fossils are numerous at 

 several exposures on the northerly slope as the road descends to "Pov- 

 erty flats," the "Poor valley" between the Walker mountains. The 

 conditions in this valley, digged out of Chemung, Hamilton and Clinton 

 shales, differ in no way from those in the "Poor valleys" already 

 described. Exposures show nothing but shales. 



The Clinton ore was mined here many years ago for the furnace at New- 

 port, in Giles county, but nothing can be learned now respecting either 

 its quantity or quality. Medina forms the southerly slope of Gap or 

 Big Walker mountain and on the summit is dipping south-eastwardly at 

 sixty degrees. 



