768 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 726 



West Virginia Geological Survey. Vol. IIA. 



Supplementary coal report. I. C. White. 



Pp. xiv + 720 and map. 1908. 



It is now five years since the publication of 

 Dr. White's first volume on the coals of West 

 Virginia. That was prepared from notes 

 made by its author during many years of ex- 

 amination prior to organization of the state 

 'geological survey; so that, while giving matter 

 of the utmost importance, it was more or less 

 fragmentary and gaps remained in critical 

 areas, where was to be sought the solution of 

 some difiicult problems in correlation. 



More than two thirds of this supplementary 

 volume is devoted to the Pottsville series, 

 which occupies the southern part of the state 

 on and beyond the New and Kanawha Rivers. 

 Five years ago, positive correlation of beds 

 had been determined in only a small part of 

 this area and identifications elsewhere were 

 little better than tentative. But during the 

 interval many bore holes have been drilled and 

 the cores have been measured with care; these 

 measurements, and those of numerous exposed 

 sections have made possible reconstruction of 

 the general section and correction of errors 

 found in earlier publications. It is unneces- 

 sary to mention these errors here, for though 

 some of them were serious from the stratig- 

 rapher's point of view they are no longer, 

 except in a very few instances, important from 

 the economic standpoint, as the corrections 

 have come in time. They reflect no discredit 

 on the earlier students, as the deposits are so 

 variable that the exact conditions could be 

 ascertained in the semi-wilderness region only 

 by the aid of diamond drill borings. 



The Pocono anthracite, just west from the 

 Great Valley, receives proper attention. Now 

 that official condemnation of the coals is avail- 

 able, it may be hoped that the Dora coal fields 

 will no longer prove a source of profit to coal 

 experts and of loss to would-be investors. Dr. 

 White calls attention to the fact that, while 

 the Pocono coal beds are found only along the 

 easterly border of the Appalachian coal field, 

 the same great formation is rich in petroleum 

 and natural gas within the central and 

 western parts of the field. He suggests that. 



in the deeper portions of the area where land 

 plants could not flourish, there was a growth 

 of marine plants and animals whose remains 

 were changed into those hydrocarbons. 



Dr. White divides the Pottsville series into 

 Beaver, New River and Pocahontas, a much 

 better grouping than that offered by Steven- 

 son, as it recognizes the early work of Fon- 

 taine on New River and that of David White 

 in the Pocahontas and southern Anthracite 

 field; the individuality of the lower divisions 

 is as distinct as is that of the Beaver. The 

 area of the Pocahontas and New River coals is 

 not far from 2,600 square miles and the 

 amount of available coal is estimated at 10,000 

 millions of tons. The coals are of remarkable 

 excellence, very low in ash and sulphur; those 

 of the Pocahontas have usually less than 18 

 per cent, of volatile matter, so that they are 

 practically smokeless when properly stoked and 

 are the typical steam coals. The New River 

 coals are richer in volatile, 17 to 26 per cent., 

 but are as low as the others in ash and sul- 

 phur. These coals thin away from the south- 

 western outcrop and disappear toward the 

 northerly and northwestwardly border of the 

 basin in which the lower and middle Pottsville 

 were deposited, each important member of the 

 column overlapping its predecessor toward the 

 west. 



The new borings and sections have made 

 clear the relations of the Kanawha or Beaver 

 coal beds. The imperfect sections of five 

 years ago in counties immediately north from 

 the Kanawha have been replaced with numer- 

 ous excellent measurements, which show that 

 Stevenson's identification of the great Roar- 

 ing-creek coal bed with the Stockton bed of the 

 Kanawha is an error, the former being about 

 50 to 75 feet above the latter. The Kanawha 

 black flint, overlying the Stockton, has been 

 discovered below the Roaring Creek sandstone 

 (equivalent to the Homestead of Pennsyl- 

 vania) so that it can not be the Putnam Hill 

 limestone of Ohio and is most probably at a 

 Mercer horizon, 70 or 80 feet lower. 



The Roaring Creek coal bed is taken by Dr. 

 White to be the Lower Kittanning, the next 

 bed above the Brookville, to which Stevenson 



