104 Rock Strata and Fossil Plants. 



Section of the Coal Strata at the Salines, on Kenawha River. 

 Order ascending. Dip S. E. 



Figs. 16 h 17. 



Bed of the Kenawha. 



1. Sandstone rock, compact and hard, grey colored, with con- 

 siderable mica in its composition. This stratum extends to the bed 

 of the river. — 60 feet. 



2. Coal, six feet in thickness, being not only the deepest bed, but 

 also affording the best coal of any in the series'. It is extensively 

 worked, for several hundred feet under the hills. A few miles be- 

 low, this bed dips under the bottom of the river, and also a few miles 

 above, it disappears in the same manner, but again appears in the 

 base of the hills between that spot and " the falls." The specific 

 gravity of the coal from this bed is 1.25. It contains more bitumen 

 and less carbon, than the beds above it, twenty grains^ of it decom- 

 posing one hundred of nitrate of potash, which will give it about six- 



