70 Richmond and Jerusalem. 



On the flanks of the hills near Black Charlie's 

 Opening the upper sandstone exists ; and it is quarried 

 for building purposes by Mr. Morrison on his estate 

 in that vicinity. Between Parson's Pass and Rich- 

 mond, and on many of the greenstone hills in the 

 direction of Campania, fragments of fossil- wood abound ; . 

 indicating, in language not to be mistaken, the exist- 

 ence at one time in these localities of the upper or 

 brown sandstone, — the matrix in which it is invariably 

 found. 



In the immediate vicinity of the limited coal-seam 

 which I have described, on the opposite side of the river, 

 and just at its head, there is a low hill cut through which 

 displays a series of undulating and unconformable over- 

 lying beds of soft brown sandstone, alternating with 

 nodular ferruginous clays and shales containing lignites, 

 ill consolidated : all of these exhibit impressions (but 

 rather imperfect) of leaves and other vegetable matter. 

 As usual, the forms of leaves of ferns and of strap- 

 shaped leaves predominate : fossil wood also abounds. 



It is observable elsewhere that, where dikes of eruptive 

 rock traverse the sandstone strata, veins of calcareous spar 

 prevail : such is also the case here ; and not merely in 

 the eruptive mass itself, but in the sedimentary rock 

 through which it has been forced. 



On the western side of that portion of the valley of the 

 Coal River extending from Richmond to the sea, there 

 runs a chain of hills which have attained an altitude of 

 400 to 500 feet. These hills consist of a compact yellow- 

 ish sandstone, into which the brown overlying sandstone 

 already mentioned appears to pass. The beds com- 

 posing these hills dip to the westward ; and they present 

 on their eastern exposure an irregular line of escarpments, 

 in which at a high level many curiously hollowed and 

 deep recesses occur, looking as if the roll of an open sea, 



