Stevenson.] Utf-n [Feb. 5, 



north and south from this line the abruptness diminishes. Its extent 

 southward is not well determined. Col. Byrne, State Superintendent of 

 Instruction in West Virgiuia, informed me that he had traced it to the 

 Great Kanawha River, near Charleston. This seems hardly possible, for 

 at the Great Kanawha, in that vicinity, there is no anticlinal, certainly 

 there is no break. It is, however, by no means improbable that the re- 

 mai'kable horizontality of the strata there may result from the flattening 

 out of this anticlinal in that direction, so that if the flattening occur 

 gradually southward, the anticlinal might be traced to that I'iver. 



Northward, where the break crosses the Ohio River near Cow Run, 

 it is said to be a gentle anticlinal, over which the upper rocks pass un- 

 broken ; and this belief is supported by Dr. Briggs' section along the 

 Ohio.* In that section the whole mass between Wheeling and Pomeroy 

 is referred to the Upper Coal Group, and the Pittshurg coal is regarded 

 as being at no point more than two hundred and fifty feet under the 

 river. There is certainly an error somewhere in this work, since in that 

 portion of West Virginia, fronting on the river, a little south from 

 Marietta, the surface rocks belong to the Lower and not the Upper Barren 

 Group, for I have found the section along the Staunton pike to be the 

 same on both sides of the break, and along the railroad it is practically 

 the same. I have no recoi-ds of borings made west from the bi'eak, but. 

 two on the east, one near EUenboro' and the other near Harrisville, were 

 driven five hundred feet and passed all the way through shales and 

 sandstones, cutting at most only two streaks of coal. If these rocks 

 belonged to the upper series, the Pittsburg coal should have been struck 

 at about three hundred feet from the surface near EUenboro', and at 

 much less near Harrisville. At Wolfe's Summit, eight miles west from 

 ■Clarksburg, the Pittshurg goes under, dipping northwestward, at the rate 

 '®f somewhat more than one hundred feet per mile. From that place 

 westward to EUenboro', the strata of the Upper Coal and Upper Barren 

 Groups are followed without a break, the dip continuing northwest all 

 the way, though gradually diminishing in sharpness. At EUenboro', the 

 rocks change and the dip becomes slightly eastward. From this line we 

 find only the characteristic red shales with the accompanying sandstones 

 until we reach the oil-break where the rapidly-increasing dip brings us 

 into the Lower Coal Group. As will be shown farther on, the rocks 

 within and the steeply-sloping sides of the break form a continuous and 

 uninterrupted series with those outside. If this series between the oil- 

 break and the EUenboro' fault belong to the Upper Barren Group, what 

 has become of the Lower Barren and Upper Coal Gi'oup? Neither of 

 these is found along the Staunton pike, where the whole structure is 

 very clearly exposed. It is absolutely certain that the Pittsburg coal 

 appears nowhere between the EUenboro' fault and the one a little 

 way east from Parkersburg, except possibly in isolated patches on tops 

 of the very highest hills. 



* Rogers' Report Q-eol. Virginia, for 1840. 



