VARIATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF THE 

 CHARLESTON SANDSTONE.^ 



The first detailed geologic work of importance in southern 

 West Virginia was undertaken by Dr. I. C. White^ in the Kana- 

 wha valley in 1884, shortly after the completion of the Second 

 Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. 



In transferring his field of activity to southern West Virginia 

 it was natural for Dr. White to look for the same key rocks that 

 he had so successfully used in Pennsylvania, and although the 

 coal-bearing formations increase greatly in thickness toward the 

 south, he identified the sandstone beds showing in the river 

 bluffs at Charleston as the southern representatives of the Mahon- 

 ing sandstone. Apparently this correlation was based on the 

 lithologic similarity of the two formations, on the division into 

 the same number of members by shale intervals carrying well- 

 marked beds of coal, and on the general succession of rocks 

 upward to the great Pittsburg coal and downward to the heavy 

 beds of the Pottsville sandstone. These correlations of Dr. White 

 were generally accepted, even in detail, by the people of the 

 Kanawha valley, and all of the coal beds were definitely referred 

 to the well-known horizons of the Pennsylvania field. 



In beginning areal geologic work in southern West Virginia 

 in 1895, the writer doubtless would have accepted the determi- 

 nations of Dr. White but for the fact that he was associated with 

 Mr. David White, who was carefully studying the fossil floras of 

 the coal-bearing rocks contemporaneously with the progress of 

 stratigraphic work. 



As fossil material accumulated, it became more and more 

 apparent to Mr. White that the correlations then generally 

 accepted were not in agreement with the fossil evidence, and 

 that in the end there would be difficulty in making direct com- 

 parisons with the type Pennsylvanian section. 



'Published by permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



''The Virginias, \o\. VI, p. 716, 1885; also Bulletin No. 65, U. S. Geological 

 Survey. 



459 



