1875.] dJ7 [Stevenson. 



12. Shale 14 ft. 



13. Coal ; 3 ft, 



14. Shale 20 ft. 



15. Sandstone 37 ft. 



16. Shale 6 ft. 



17. Shale, black 10 ft. 



18. Shale 50 ft. 



19. Sandstone 20 ft. 



Total 553 ft. 



Oil was found in Nos. 9 and 19. The coal, No. 13, is said to be very 

 soft and in appearance to resemble the Grahamite. It is not exposed 

 everywhere and has been found only in borings. 



Respecting the horizon of these rocks there is no room for doubt. The 

 chert is undoubtedly the same as that found on the Great Kanawha River, 

 immediately below the Mahoning Sandstone. Here, as so frequently 

 elsewhere in West Virginia, that sandstone holds a thin bed of coal. The 

 shale below the chert is rich, in species of fossils, which, in the Appala- 

 chian region, are thus far utterly unknown at every horizon above the 

 middle of the Lower Barren Group. Such a fossiliferous shale is very 

 often found between the Mahoning Sandstone and the immediately under- 

 lying coal. From the sandstone down, the whole facies is that of the 

 Lower Coal Group, and at an inconsiderable depth the shales of the 

 Lower Carboniferous are reached. 



Along the line of the Northwestern Railroad, the conditions are much 

 more complicated, and one finds some difficulty in working out the true 

 structure. Here the uplifting agency was exerted much more energeti- 

 cally than on any other line, whether north or south from the railroad. 



Approaching Laurel Junction from the west, we pass through the 

 Lower Barren Group. The strata are dipping westward very slightly 

 until we approach the station, when the dip instantly changes to 30°, 

 and within a very short distance increases to 75°. It then declines almost 

 as rapidly to 2° or 3°. On the east side of the break near Petroleum, the 

 conditions are similar, the easterly dip suddenly increasing from a frac- 

 tion of one degree to twenty, and then to thirty-six degrees. On each 

 side of the break the uplifted rocks are certainly not far from eight 

 hundred feet thick, and they may possibly be somewhat more. The dis- 

 turbed conditions renders it difficult to make a good estimate. In these 

 rocks we find near Laurel Junction a thin coal bed, one foot, separated by 

 about ten feet of shale from a slaty coal, barely eight inches thick. Botq 

 coals are badly broken, fire-clay and shale having been forced into them. 

 From information given me by Prof. Fontaine, I am inclined to think 

 that this same double bed is seen a little farther east in another cut, 

 still sharply upturned. Near Petroleum, a similar bed is involved in the 

 abruptly sloping rocks, and a little east from that village a thin coal is 

 occasionally worked, which is said to be double and to resemble the one 



