Lesley. ] 504 [April 21, 
Abb’s Valley is produced by a great upthrow of the Lower Silurian 
limestone against the Coal Measures. The turnpike enters it almost at 
its head, or western end. From the notch in TV through which the road 
passes, to the Dry-water course in the centre of the valley is a descent 
(by barometer) of only 110 feet. Westward the valley rapidly fills up, 
and that is the course to take in locating a railroad from the mines out to 
Jeffersonville. A feasible route may be obtained, I think, by keeping up 
Abb’s Valley to and over its divide, and down Cavyitt’s Run to the Clinch, 
two miles west of Jeffersonville. 
The cause of the heading up of Abb’s Valley and Mud Fork Valley so 
suddenly westward, and against what seems to be the main body of the 
Tug Fork of Sandy Coal Measures, is a most interesting and important 
affair, which should be investigated. I can only conjecture it. I take it 
to be likely that the Abb’s Valley Upthrow of limestone starts across the 
Measures southwestwardly, becoming less and less of an upthrow, and 
thus swallowing down from the surface first, the Lower Silurian lime- 
stones of Abb’s Valley, and then the shales and sandstones of the two 
stony ridges IV and X; and that it finally merges in the Clinch River 
Upthrow. At all events, such a geology would result in a topography of 
this sort : The limestone and shale valleys would head up suddenly against 
a ridge composed of Coal Measures Conglomerate or Sandrocks, 
My advice is, that no coal-freight railroad line be sought for in the 
direction taken by the Jefferson and Tug Sandy Turnpike. But, on the 
contrary, that a line be sought further west, more down the Clinch, viz. : 
up Cavitt’s Creek. Let the coal beds there be carefully explored, and a 
line be found across the divides beyond the west line of Abb’s Valley. 
ABB’S VALLEY COAL. 
Wifty feet below the summit of the hill, shown in the ‘‘Local Map’’ 
on the next page, and nearly 150 feet above the coal bed at its base, is 
a layer of very coarse, gray, friable sandstone, weathering yellow, with- 
out pebbles. Over it a tree has turned up a coal crop. 
The coal bed below is, perhaps, the only workable bed of this district. 
For, after descending, at a slope of one or two (2°) degrees, south 20° 
east, through the base of the hill, and getting under water level, it seems 
to turn up suddenly and quite vertically, and to outcrop along the bottom 
of a little valley. It has been mined a little close to the turnpike (0) 
and Mr. Smith reports it to be ‘‘as wide as a room.”’ 
Ten miles east of this, and in a similar position, a coal bed is mined, 
which I judge to be the same one, and it is called ten (10) feet thick. 
In the openings at the foot of the hill (at a) it has been merely thrown 
out from the water of the little Hy Peegits 
dug coal all through this re- 
gion, gives its thickness as (5) 
five feet of coal in 5? of space. 
A dirt bed, four inches thick, 
separates the lower bench of 
very fine coal from the upper and main body of the bed. 
