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WILUAM8.J FONTAJNE, WHITE. 93 



In 1876 W. M. Fontaine 1 proposed the name of "Conglomerate 

 series" for tbe strata in West Virginia which occupy the interval be- 

 tween the floor of the Productive Coal Measures and the Devonian (or 

 lower productive coals and red shales of the Umbral). Important coals 

 are said to occur in the equivalent of the Conglomerate series, and also 

 well developed coals in the Vespertine of Montgomery County, Vir- 

 ginia, near White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, etc. 



D. D. Owen, nearly 20 years before, had recognized coals below the 

 Conglomerate in Kentucky, although not in marketable quantities, and 

 the Conglomerate was regarded by him as the base of the Coal Measures. 



I. C. White, 2 in 1876, made some comments before the New York 

 Lyceum on the Beaver County Coal Measures. 



The line of section presented at the opening of this paper begins at 

 the village of Homewood, in Beaver County, and follows the Beaver 

 Eiver to Rochester. The strata exposed extend from the Mahoning 

 sandstone to the base of the Tionesta sandstone, dipping eastwardly at 

 the rate of little more than 25 feet to the mile. The thickness of the 

 Mahoning sandstone varies from 30 to 75 feet. It is usually a massive 

 rock, but its composition is not persistent, sometimes it being merely a 

 mass of shale. 



Below it is the upper Freeport coal, of little importance, and then the 

 Freeport limestone, a pure white limestone and very persistent. The 

 bed of shale under this is fossiliferous, containing species of Productus, 

 Spirifer, Athyris, etc. Then comes a thin seam of coal rich in vegeta- 

 ble remains, the lower Freeport coal, not workable, and the Kittanuing 

 coal, the most important bed in this part of the country, at one place 

 yielding 200 tons daily. 



To this succeeds the Ferriferous limestone, varying in thickness from 

 8 inches to 25 feet. It is richly fossiliferous in species of Productus, 

 Spirifer, Pleurotomaria, etc. Shaly beds and thin beds of coal follow, 

 one of the beds of shale containing many fossils, one stratum being 

 made up almost entirely of Aviculopecten ivhitei, with Spirorbis carbo- 

 narius attached to these shells in vast numbers, the latter fossil occur- 

 ring at this locality only. 



The Tionesta sandstone is a very hard, coarse white rock. It is 50 feet 

 above the river at Homewood, but passes under the river opposite New 

 Brighton, 7 miles below. 



Mr. Charles A. Young 3 describes the Conglomerate on New River as 

 made of alternating sandstones and shales, the former numbering live, 

 and the latter containing the workable coal seams. The total thickness 

 is about 1,000 feet. 



•Fontaine, William M. : The Conglomerate series of West Virginia. Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., vol. 

 2, 1876, pp. 276-284, 374-384 ; the Virginias, February, 1880, vol. 1, pp. 27-29. 



*White, I. C. : Notes on the Coal Measures of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. N. Y. Lyceum of Nat. 

 Hist., Annals, 1876, vol. 11, pp. 14-18. 



» Young, Charles A. : On Conglomerate No. XII (in West Virginia). Philadelphia Acad. Sci. Proc, 

 vol. 28, 1876, p. 262. 



