Stevenson.] tJ^-. _ [Feb. 5, 



The limestone and coal both were seen near EUenboro', as well as in 

 the hills near a deep cut three miles farther west. This coal, I take to be 

 the same with that whose blossom is seen in the roadside between Harris- 

 ville and Cornwallis Station, not far from the former place. The sand- 

 stones, Nos. 5 and 7, are soft, light gray, somewhat feldspathic and con- 

 tain much mica. The upper is the more compact and durable. Both 

 maybe seen near Cornwallis Station, where the upper stratum is quarried 

 extensively by the railroad company for building purposes. The lower 

 one is apt to become flaggy. No. 8 is first seen near Cornwallis, and is 

 the prevailing rock exposed in the cuttings from that place to near Pe- 

 troleum, except near Silver Run Summit, four miles east from Petroleum, 

 where the grade of the road brings one into the upper members of the 

 group. The shales greatly predominate. When freshly exposed, they 

 resemble a reddish shale enclosing nodules of sandstone. The whole, 

 however, is a mass of slightly arenaceous clay shale, without definite 

 bedding, of dull red color, with brownish patches, and readily breaking 

 up into coarse powder on exposure. The color is characteristic, and once 

 seen cannot fail to be remembered. No such shale occurs in the Upper 

 Barren Group. It does occur in the Lower Barren Group along Buck- 

 hannon River and the Staunton pike, in Upshur county. No other group 

 resembles it except the Red Shales of the Lower Carb niferous. Near 

 Petroleum we find under it a sandstone, which, doubtless, belongs to the 

 Lower Coal Group. 



Along the Northwestern pike only the upper members of the group 

 are exposed, until one approaches the eastern slope of this "break." 



South wai'd from the railroad the rocks show the same character. At a 

 short distance west from Harrisville a boring was made for oil. It was 

 continued to the depth of five hundred feet and then abandoned. No 

 record of it is accessible. I am informed that for most of the distance 

 the drill passed through red shales, and that two very thin beds of coal 

 or carbonaceous shale were passed through. On the Staunton pike, these 

 rocks are well exposed for nearly twenty miles, by the road. They are 

 said to contain two very thin beds of coal. Of one of these I saw the 

 blossom about three miles west from Webb's Mills. It seems to be about 

 ten inches thick. A very notable feature just east from the break is a 

 sandstone, about twenty feet thick, resting on shale. 



Leaving aside, for the present, all reference to the strata involved in 

 the slopes of the oil-break, we pass across the break to the west, where 

 we find a similar series of rocks, differing only in this, that the red tint 

 is not the only one in the shale, many jjortions along the railroad having 

 a bluish cast. 



Upon the line of the railroad, west from Laurel Junction, we find the 

 rate of dip quickly decreasing to less than one degree. Before reaching 

 the tunnel, one mile west from the Junction, the blossom of a thin coal 

 is seen in a low cut. This is probably two hundred feet higher than the 

 rocks in the Junction cut, and is overlaid by a mass of bluish-red shale 



