Lesley.] [May 3, 
These details are not only interesting in themselves, but necessary for 
familiarizing the observer with the scene of a geological action, common 
enough in our Appalachian region, but rarely exhibiting itself in so bold 
and telling a way as at Embreeville. 
A fault—an upthrow and overshove—a collapsed synclinal at the edge 
of the thrown-down mass—all this is presented to the eye of the struc- 
tural geologist, as he stands on the steps of the little Church of Embree- 
ville and looks across the river eastward. Hundreds of feet of limestone 
outcrop, in part natural cliffs, in part quarry work, demonstrate the 
problem of Cambrian overlying Silurian—the Quebee Group overriding 
Trenton Limestone—by drawing it in a grandly visible diagram, a mile 
long, by 800 feet high. 
The solid plates of limestone are bent round in the synclinal without 
fracture (other than at the great cleavage planes) as though they had 
been as plastic as wax. A slight anticlinal roll immediately precedes the 
sudden upturn to a vertical followed by a declining angle in the reversed 
sense. ‘I'he exact place of the fault is obscured by a general crush and 
sheet-covering of the finely broken shale and very thin bedded shaly 
sandstone layers which make the rest of the mountain mass. 
Up through these sandy shales, dividing them into an upper and lower 
system, rise the bold outcrops of two conglomerate beds, each about 20 
feet thick. One of them, forming the crest of the mountain east of the 
river, descends in a dyke to the water, sinks under the valley, and reap- 
pears to face the slopes at the bend at the mouth of Bompas Creek. The 
other forms a dyke along the foot of the mountain from the Furnace 
southwest to Bompass Cove. These two coarse sandrocks or finely brec- 
ciated conglomerates are shown in the diagram at the foot of the map on 
page 445, above. 
It will be noticed that another set of sandrocks, not at all conglome- 
rate, but semi-crystalline in texture, and (with alternations of softer 
kinds, and shale bands) at least 100 feet thick, come in above and (being 
nearly horizontal) cause that hog-back topography seen in the horseshoe 
bend of the river. It willbe noticed also that above these last sandrocks, 
lies a third or uppermost system of sandy shales. These constitute (with 
some still higher intercalated massive sandrocks) the bulk of the inwall- 
ing river hills (600-800 feet high) all the way up (about 8 miles) to the en- 
trance into Grassy Cove; that is, to the next parallel fault throwing 
down the Silurians. 
It will be evident to those familiar with this characteristic structure of 
East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, that the Nolichnckee River ex- 
poses a nearly transverse cross-section of a long prism of earth-crust com- 
posed of sandy shales, sandrocks and conglomerates, at least 600 feet 
thick, elevated between enclosing sunken countries of Lower Silurian 
Limestone. 
There is no sign of squeeze and distortion along the southern (G reasy 
Cove) fissure, for the uplifted upper shales abut there horizontally against 
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