412 W. M. Fontaine— West Virginia Asphaltum Deposit. 
working the mineral, being, no doubt, too locally developed to 
exist there. The second is seen near the mine, and occurs 
near the top of the gray shale No. 6. Each bed is thus found 
on the top of a heavy stratum of gray shale, and is capped by 
a heavy bed of sandstone. The recurrence in regular order of 
the same character of rocks, in our section, and, so far as they 
have been measured, with nearly the same thickness, is some- 
what singular. We thus see that in the geological horizon of 
our mineral, and the conspicuous absence of material to pro- 
duce bituminous matter, we have the exact opposite of the con- 
ditions prevailing at the locality of the Albertite deposit of 
New Brunswick. It will be remembered that this occurs at 
the base of the Carboniferous formation, and in intimate con- 
nection with a heavy stratum of bituminous shale. ‘ 
Here, also, we have no anticlinal folds, as in the Albertite 
the mines, it is crossed obliquely by MeFarland’s Run, a tribu- 
tary of Hughes River, and here flowing in a southwest diree- 
tion. This run has trenched the strata quite considerably, 
having cut out a narrow valley about 200 feet deep. Into this, 
a smaller stream, called Mine Run, empties near by. This 
latter flows nearly north and south, and thus cuts the deposit 
nearly at right angles, at a distance of 1,250 feet from the valley 
of McFarland’s Run. In the sides of the deep ravine, cut by 
Mine Run, the deposit was first discovered, presenting the 
appearance of a vertical band, 4 feet wide, cutting the hills 
from top to bottom. ‘The deposit has been worked vert 
cally through a distance of 300 feet, and, horizontally, z 
he mineral has been traced about a quarter of a mile mri 
yond the west termination of the works, but it is there 
duced to a mere string. If we continue in the sapediic ta’ 
sinter: 
along 
called here the “oil break.” No one who examines the crevic? 
containing the asphaltum, and then this belt of rocks, so strang® i 
upheaved in the midst of horizontal strata, can resist th an 
that both these disturbances of the strata had a common caus’ 
