1894.] ^83 [Lyman. 



One of the surveys covered the tract owned by the Poytona Cannel 

 Coal Company, at Peytona, on Coal River, thirty-five miles above Coals- 

 mouth (or St. Alban's), on the Kanawha, and about twenty -two miles by 

 road south of Charleston, the State capital, and twelve miles southerly 

 from Brownstown. It is a tract of 6137 acres, in the shape nearly of an 

 oblong square about five miles long by a mile and three-quarters wide, 

 with the long sides running about northeast. 



The other survey covered the two Parker tracts on Lens Creek (marked 

 as Callacham's Creek, on some maps), both together about 6500 acres, 

 and somewhat in the shape of a leg of mutton, or of a rather one sided 

 oak leaf with the stem of the leaf or smaller end about a mile southwest 

 of the mouth of the creek, near Brownstown, on the Kanawha, ten miles 

 above (southwest of) Charleston, and with the eastern side running in a 

 sinuous course southerly about three miles and a half, and the western side 

 mainly following the course of the creek. The southwestern corner is 

 about four miles northeast of Peytona. 



LAY OF THE LAND. 



The land of both surveys has the same general topographical character 

 that is found under like geological conditions throughout so large a region 

 in "West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, namely, very steep, often 

 cliffy, hillsides and narrow valleys, with the hills rising 800 to 900 feet, or 

 even more to summits that are mostly narrow, here and there even sharp, 

 but in some places broad and flat, and with narrow strips of nearly flat 

 land, up to a couple of hundred yards in width, along the lower and com- 

 paratively level parts of the streams. The lowest points in each survey 

 are some 600 feet above sea level. 



The Peytona tract is drained by Coal River, flowing westward across its 

 northern end, and in the central part by Indian Creek, flowing northerly, 

 the western edge by the eastern branches of Droddy's Creek, up as far as 

 its Lick Fork at the southwest corner ; and the southern corner by the head 

 waters of the Sandy Lick Fork of Laurel Creek. 



On the Parker tract, the lower part of Lens Creek, from its forks north- 

 eastward three-quarters of a mile to its mouth forms the stem of the oak- 

 leaf shape, and the midrib of the leaf is the left fork of Lens Creek, with 

 long side ribs and veinlets on the western side, and shorter ones on the 

 east. A narrow strip besides is added along the west, containing the most 

 eastern branches of the right fork of Lens Creek, which forms the western 

 boundary. Both forks fall only fifty or sixty feet to the mile for four 

 miles above their union ; but above that much more rapidly. 



GEOLOGY. 



Structure. — The geological structure that occasions the peculiar topo- 

 graphical character, with flat, table-like hilltops here and there, with flat 

 valleys and with many cliffs on the almost uniformly abrupt hillsides is, 

 of course, the very level bedding of a great thickness of rocks at a siifli- 

 cient height above sea-level. 



