May 1, 1S74.] ^'^i [Fulton. 



NOTE ON THE SOMERSET COUNTY COAL BEDS IN PB.NfN- 

 SYLVANIA. 



By JoriN Fulton. 

 {Lead before the American PhilosopJiical Society/, May 1st,, 1874.) 



In a receut professional visit to Somerset county, I obtained a vertical 

 section of a portion of the Lower Coal Measures. As this part of the 

 State has been, until quite recently, shut out from investigation, I pi-e- 

 sumed that this scale would be interesting, and I respectfully submit it. 



The section was obtained from recent coal exploratians, near the 

 village of Garrett, on the Pittsburg and Connellsville Railroad . At this 

 place, the Serai Conglomerate is very clearly developed, rising gently 

 westward on the eastern flank of Negro Mountain. 



Negro Mountain, or rather the Anticlinal bearing this name, plows up 

 the middle of the first great basin, dividing it, at this place, into two 

 shallow troughs having their greatest dei3th of coal measures near 

 Meyer's Mills and Bear Creek — the whole lying between the Alleghany 

 Mountain on the east, and Laurel Hill on the west. 



Over the back of Negro Mountain, the coal measures and conglomerate 

 have been swept away, leaving uncovered the red back of this large anti- 

 clinal. 



Castleman's River cuts deeply across the Negro Mountain anticlinal, 

 unfolding a natural geological section, which has been farther elabora- 

 ted by the railroad cuttings along its northern bank — the whole affording 

 unusual facilities for studying Formations XI and XII, with the posture 

 and stratigrai>hy of the coal measures shoreing on either flank. 



Beginning in the railroad cutting, immediately west of Garrett Sta- 

 tion, the Serai Conglomerate can be studied up to its floor. In this cut- 

 ting, a thin seam of impure coal has been brought to light. It also ex- 

 hibits a rather unusual plunge of the strata eastward, carrying the 

 measures down 300 feet in three quarters of a mile— with this exception, 

 the measures exist under very gentle dips. 



The Conglomerate, in its mechanical structure and general appearance, 

 resembles very closely Broad Top and Clearfield. 



I did not obtain its total thickness but examined over 300 feet of it, 

 which indicates a greater depth than at Broad Top. 



The floor line is distinctly marked in a bold cliff outcrop, 10 feet deep, 

 of rather massive Conglomerate, slashed with clearage planes. 



On this rests a belt composed, at its base, of thin plates of sandstone 

 graduating into shales and blackslate as it approaches the (A) coal seam. 

 The division has been terraced with a flat slope, from the brow of the 

 Conglomerate to the coal seam, profiling the two horizons very dis- 

 tinctly. 



The first coal seam rests on a thin floor of fireclay. The coal bed has 



