1875.] OoJ [Stevenson. 



third is seen near the same pith, three miles farther south. These 

 openings hardly deserve the name, as only a few sackfuls of coal have 

 been taken from each. In all of them the coal shows the same character. 

 This little bed is of much interest. Here in the vicinity of the Staun- 

 ton pike is the northern termination or better, perhaps, the beginning of 

 the important group of "conglomerate" coals so fully described by 

 Prof. Fontaine, in West Virginia, which farther southward become the 

 main source of supply in Tennessee. In the northern portion of the 

 State no coal occurs in the congloouerate. The local geologist, quoted by 

 Prof. Fontaine and myself, who asserted that two beds occur in this 

 group, is an ignorant man, who regarded the Tionesta Sandstone as part 

 of the conglomerate, and so placed the Tionesta coals in this group. 



Lower Carboniferous. 



My observations in the Lower Carboniferous were made along the east 

 slope of Rich Mountain at tsvo or three localities between the Staunton 

 pike and the Huttonsville bridle-path, a distance of somewhat more than 

 ten miles north and south. The results therefore are not of much im- 

 portance. 



The red shales were seen on the Staunton pike. Thei-e they are in 

 part quite arenaceous, and are almost a thinly laminated shaly sand- 

 stone. Their thickness cannot be accurately determined at that expo- 

 sure, but I take it to be little more than fifcy feet. They do not appear 

 to contain any important deposit of iron oi-e, such as occurs near the 

 Pennsylvania line. Six miles south from the Staunton pike, the shales 

 are entirely wanting, and the conglomerate rests directly on the lime- 

 stone. The line of contract is finely exposed at several localities but at 

 none better than at a placs nearly two -thirds of a mile north from Mr. 

 Bradley's house, where the limestone and conglomerate are seen in con- 

 tact along a bluif for about thirty feet. 



The shales are of a deep red color, and the micaceous sandy layers are 

 almost as deep red as the pressed brick on our house-fronts. As a whole, 

 this series bears very close resemblance to the red shales of the Lower 

 Barren Group, and might easily be mistaken for them. About fifteen 

 miles north from the Staunton pike, at the gap made by Tygart's River 

 on its passage through Rich Mountain, Mr. J. Woolley found these shales 

 two hundred feet thick ; their identity being certified by the conglome- 

 rate above and the limestone below. Within twenty miles south from 

 that locality they have wholly disappeared. 



The rapid thickening of the limestone is remarkable, contrasting 

 strangely in this respect with those of the Coal Measures. Near the 

 State line on Cheat River the limestone mass is barely one hundred feet 

 thick, as ascertained by boi-ing. In Randolph county, I saw a continu- 

 ous exposure of nearly four hundred feet. A space of two hundred feet 

 is concealed, and below that a calcareous shale occurs, so that the thick- 

 ness is not less than seven hundred feet. In Pocahontas and Greenbrier 



