MIDDLE AND UPPER DEVONIAN OF ROMNEY REGION 19 



latter named from exposures in this county. There are only poor 

 outcrops of the Jennings along the highway east of Romney, but 

 farther east, in ascending the western slope of the northern part of 

 South Branch Mountain, are excellent outcrops of red argillaceous 

 shales belonging in the Hampshire formation. By the side of the 

 highway, a short distance east of the first bridge over Big Run, are 

 outcrops of sandstones and shales. The top and bottom layers 

 consist of somewhat shattered, greenish to greenish-gray micaceous 

 sandstone which breaks into blocks. Between the sandstones are 

 thin, fissile, argillaceous shales, principally reddish-brown in color. 

 The dip varies in different parts of the exposure from 11° to 14° 

 S.E. No fossils were found, and the ledge is probably in the lower 

 part of the Hampshire formation. 



The rocks exposed by the side of the road east of this locality 

 and up the valley of Big Run are mainly argillaceous shales, though 

 there are some green ones, and interstratified with all of them are 

 sandstones which are coarse-grained, greenish-gray in color, and 

 massive. These outcrops occur along the highway below and in 

 the vicinity of the locality known as the Peach Orchard, where, on 

 top of the hill, the rocks are mainly red shale and the soil red in 

 color, owing to their decomposition. These outcrops by the road 

 and on the hill furnish a typical exposure of the Hampshire forma- 

 tion in northeastern West Virginia. 



In Darton's account of the Devonian formations of central 

 Mrginia he says that "The Hampshire formation has yielded only 

 a few plant remains which throw no light on the equivalency of the 

 formation, but no doubt it comprised the representatives of the Cats- 

 kill in their entirety or in greater part."^ As stated by Darton, 

 fossils are rare in this formation, as is the case in the corresponding 

 one in Pennsylvania arid New York; but the Hthologic appearance 

 and stratigraphic position agree, in general, with those of the Cats- 

 kill formation, which has been shown to be a local one in New 

 York, scarcely represented in the southwestern part of the state, 

 while in the southeastern or Catskill Mountain region it has replaced 

 all of the Chemung and the greater part of the Portage of western 

 New York. It has been further shown that to the east of the 



' American Geologist, X, 18. 



