76 Geology of the Kiskiminitas. 



7. Sandstone in beds of various thickness and qualities ; some 

 coarse conglomerate, with imbedded pebbles, others, grey or yellow- 

 ish and fine grained, containing fossil trees and casts, with the bitu- 

 minized leaves of various species of plants. — 160 feet. 



8. Dark carbonaceous slaty clay. — 10 feet. 



9. Coal deposit ; black, hard and vitreous fracture — worked ex- 

 tensively for the manufacture of salt. — 5 feet. 



10. Dark bituminous slaty shale, resting on the coal and forming 

 the roof of the bed. It is filled with the impressions of Neuroptera 

 and Sphenoptera. These ancient families of plants, are very abun- 

 dant in nearly all our coal deposits. Animal remains have been 

 found in this deposit, a fossil Turtle, and several shells having been 

 taken from it by Mr. Boggs. — 12 feet. 



11. Yellowish grey argillaceous sandstone rock, in thick beds con- 

 taining fossil vegetable impressions. — 116 feet. 



12. Slaty sandstone rock, friable and loose texture. — 20 feet. 



13. Yellowish argillaceous soil, top of the hill intermixed with 

 slaty fragments. — 10 feet. 



14. Bituminous coal. This bed of coal first makes its appear- 

 ance at the margin of the river, one mile and a half above the loca- 

 tion of this section, and crops out on the surface of a hill a short dis- 

 tance above. The angle of elevation is such, that were it continued, 

 it would be at the height of two hundred feet above stratum No. 9 of 

 the series. It is nearly twelve feet in thickness. This bed, with 

 the superincumbent strata, must have been washed away and destroy- 

 ed down to its present outcrop, at the period when the Kiskiminitas 

 forced a passage through this opposing ridge. At the Connemaugh 

 Avorks, a few miles above, but one deposit of coal makes its appear- 

 ance, and it is without doubt the second bed seen at the Kiskimini- 

 tas. Here it is only four feet in thickness and at an elevation of 

 about sixty feet in some places, at others, near the margin, or under 

 the bed of the river, rising or dipping with the surface of the hills — 

 at this place, the hills are only about two hundred feet in height, which 

 accounts for the lower bed not being seen here. 



Salt was first manufactured at Connemaugh in the year 1814; 

 at Kiskiminitas in 1821. 



The following extracts from a very full and luminous report of a 

 committee of the Senate of Pennsylvania, made by I. J. Packer, 

 chairman, March 4, 1834, discloses many new and interesting facts, 

 as to the extent and value of the bituminous coal measures^ within 

 that state. 



