West of the Alleghany Mountains. 227 



proved to contain the upper coals, and some of our leading 

 geologists profess to find equivalents of the same beds in the 

 anthracite region. In Ohio, west of the line of outcrop, 

 isolated patches are found in the synclinal passing through 

 Guernsey county, ten to fifteen miles away. At New Con- 

 cord, Muskingum Co., Ohio, twenty-three miles west from 

 Salesville, there is a thin coal resting on a heavy buff colored 

 fossiliferous limestone and occupying both sides of the syn- 

 clinal trough, of which the bottom is at that village. About 

 fifty feet below it is a hard limestone, bluish-gray in color 

 and fossiliferous, known in the Ohio section as the Crinoidal 

 Limestone, a persistent stratum traceable into Pennsylvania 

 and West Virginia. 



Along the western outcrop of the Pittsburg coal the 

 Crinoidal Limestone is found at a distance, varying little 

 from one hundred and fifty feet, below the coal, and the 

 interval is occupied by variegated shales and shaly sand- 

 stones, with no coal or even bituminous shale. From four 

 to ten feet below the coal there is a tough limestone, varying 

 in color, four to six feet thick and more or less fossiliferous. 

 It would seem then from the accompanying rocks that the 

 New Concord coal is the western prolongation of the Pitts- 

 burg. It is true that the interval between it and the Crinoidal 

 Limestone is at that place very much less than at Salesville, 

 twenty-three miles east, but even this is an additional proof 

 of identity, for this interval increases eastward. Three 

 miles northwest from New Concord it is barely thirty-five 

 feet ; at Concord it is fifty ; at Salesville it is one hundred 

 and fifty ; while in the Monongahela Valley it is two hun- 

 dred and fifty. 



The Crinoidal Limestone has been traced to within three 

 miles of the Muskingum river on the west and thence round 

 to the borders of Tuscarawas and Stark, on the northwest 

 and into Columbiana and Mahoning on the north. So 

 constant and regular is it in its relations to the Pittsburg 

 coal, that we may regard its distribution as an indication of 



