FeatherstonhaugVs Geological Report. 103 



known to extend many miles to the S. S. W., no examination 

 of them has yet been made minute enough to ascertain their 

 capacity. This I learned from some of the proprietors is 

 about to be done. 



From Hancock to Cumberland, the proposed termination of 

 the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, about forty miles, a great 

 number of subordinate ridges are crossed, consisting of red 

 shales, sandstones, ferruginous ores, grits, and occasional 

 bands of encrinital limestone. Some of these are the bifur 

 cations of one principal ridge, as Town hill is of Sidling hill, 

 which extends up to the Juniatta, in Pennsylvania ; all, how 

 ever, appear to have one general magnetic direction, running 

 between north and northeast.* At Flint Stone, twelve miles 

 from Cumberland, are beds of limestone, containing fossils 

 analogous to those of the carboniferous limestone of the West 

 ern country, belierophon, lingula, avicula, turbo, a great va 

 riety of favosites, madrepores, and other zoophytes, and beds 

 of encrinites, converted into calcareous spar, which would 

 make very beautiful marbles. These beds appear to me to 

 be the equivalents of the Ludlow rocks. The country again 

 rises with shales and sandstones, but on approaching Cumber 

 land, beds of limestone are again met with, but very slaty, 

 and alternating with shale and sandstone ; sometimes they 

 are horizontal, sometimes contorted, and are thrown even into 

 vertical inclinations. The fossils here again come near to 

 those of the carboniferous limestone. To the west of this 

 place rises a lofty ridge, called Wills s mountain, about 900 feet 

 in height, with an immense gap, through which Wills s creek 



* Charles B. Fisk, Esq., the intelligent chief engineer of the Chesapeake 

 and Ohio canal, was obliging enough to have parallel lines run for me, to 

 cover points of white granular sandstone, and red sandstone, which had been 

 identified as belonging to the anticlinal strata, following the magnetic direction 

 above alluded to. These lines, which extended from the neighborhood of 

 Hancock across the Cacapon river to a point west of the Cacapon and south of 

 the Potomac, gave a course of S. 34 degrees W. 



