Lesiey.} 506 {April 21, 
of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky extends, without a break, to the 
Ohio River. And the south edge of this coal field is the north ridge of 
Abb’s Valley. The coal beds can be opened anywhere in the hills, just 
north of Abb’s Valley ; and several low windgaps, similar to that at Mr. 
Smith’s, give the people of the valley access to the coal field. But, as I 
have said before, the railway line which passes through Tazewell must 
approach the coal field from the west—not from the south ; around the 
head of Abb’s Valley, from Cavitt’s Creek. This will also subserve the 
interests of any railway projected from the Ohio River up Tug Fork of 
Sandy to Jeffersonville. 
(N. B.—I do not feel entire confidence in my geology of the sandstone 
ridges at Smith’s,—the ridges which form the north boundary of Abb’s 
Valley. They need much more careful study than I could give them.) 
THE IRON ORES OF IL AND V. 
The valleys of Tazewell and Russell, in Virginia, being geological, as 
well as geographical, prolongations of the interior limestone valleys of 
Pennsylvania, such as the Nittany, Morrison’s Cove, and Kishicoquilis, 
contain necessarily the same kinds of ore, inthe same formations, and inthe 
same conditions. I mean that the unbroken ground is at present covered 
with patches of brown hematite ‘ blossom,’ just as the ground used to 
-be where our charcoal furnaces stand ; and that the color of the road and 
field soil is the same as that of our best iron ore banks; the limestone 
rocks project in the same style, have the same internal composition, and 
exhibit the same corroded and-dissolved surfaces ; and potholes, caverns, 
and sitks abound along certain lines of outcrop. All these things are 
now known to bear an intimate relationship with both the original setting 
free of the mineral iron from the limerocks, and its subsequent deposit 
and consolidation. And it seems to be becoming clear to our geologists, 
that while there are regularly stratified beds and belts of the ore at two 
or three distinct horizons in the Lower Silurian Limestone Formation, 
which may be traced for many miles along the strike of the rocks, there 
are also vast accumulations of this brown hematite ore along anticlinal 
axes, especially wherever these are fractured ; or degenerate into pure up- 
throw faults. It stands to reason that such a line of fracture, with a high 
wall on one side of it, should, in the course of thousands of ages, have 
collected vast quantities of the peroxidized iron which was being, through 
all these ages, set free in the slow dissolution of the limestones and the 
reduction of the whole mass of upheaved country to its present level. To 
say nothing of the facility afforded by such fissures to the decomposing 
and recomposing agency of drainage waters. 
It is along the great upthrow fissures, then, that we are first to seek the 
iron ore deposits of this section of Virginia. And such a spot was 
pointed out to me near the mouth of Lick Run, on the hills bordering the 
north bank of the Clinch River, in Russell County, at section line No. 4 
upon the map. Large masses of ‘blossom ” lie scattered about the 
fields. 
Similar shows of ore occur in other places. The hills southeast of Jef- 
