1875.] 



:399 



[Stevenso 



East and west from the break along the railroad, the rocks do not dif- 

 fer materially in character from those in similar position along the Staun- 

 ton pike, where the relations are very clear. They are, therefore, of 

 Lower Barren age. Borings made near the pike, say twelve miles south 

 from the railroad, show the thickness of the Lower Coal Group and the 

 Conglomerate to be not far from six hundred feet, and borings imme- 

 diately north from the railroad show about the same thickne s. In the 

 several cuts near Laurel Junction on the railroad, there are exposed sev- 

 eral hundred feet of strata dipping at angles varying from ten to seventy- 

 five degrees. These cannot belong wholly to the Lower Barren Group, 

 for by far the greater portion has no equivalent in that group, being sand- 

 stone clearly underlying the mass of shales. From what we know of the 

 Coal Measures in this portion of the trough, it is deemed impossible for 

 the Barren Group to increase so enormously within barely twelve miles. 

 The greater portion of these upturned rocks must belong to the Lower 

 Coal Group, and must be identical with the shattered fragments arranged 

 in rude horizontality between the sides of the break. 



*' 'a ' — rather heavy bedded gray sandstone, weathering reddish brown; 

 '6' — thin sandstone plates, placed on each other like saucers, and abut- 

 ting on 'c,' which is a bluish fine shale; '(Z' and 'e' are dark heavy 

 bedded sandstones " 



Such being the case, it is evident that we have here the remains of an 

 anticlinal. All the conditions go to show that the upheaval was not slow, 

 but very violent, even explosive. It seems as though the rocks had been 

 blown ovit with such force as to fracture them on the crest of the anticli- 

 nal and as though the fi agments, thus produced, had fallen into the broad 

 gulf and keyed up the sides. In conversation. Prof. Fontaine has com- 

 pared the conditions with those which would result if the top of a hollow 

 anticlinal was battered in, and the simile is a good one. What the na- 



