Geology. 415 



reiy unusual arrangement of the head waters of the Tennessee River, in 

 long parallel branches, with few subordinate affluents, suddenly uniting 

 through mountain gorges, or at the ends of long mountains. 



area on its seaward flank ; because, the last formation to dip against each 

 fault is the Coal at the top of the series, abutting against the Lower Si- 

 lurian of the limestone valley which always exists on the eastern side of 

 the fault. 



The coal here, however, is not the coal of the Carboniferous formation, 



Underneath the true coal measures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North- 

 western Virginia, and underneath the Millstone Grit Conglomerate (No. 

 XII) at its base, and the Red Shale formation (No. XI), which underlies 

 the last, there begins, even in Pennsylvania, to appear an older coal forma- 

 tion, connected with the uppermost Devonian, white, mountain Sand- 

 stone, No. X. It is seen in one or two beds two feet thick at the head 



through Chestnut Ridge from Virginia into Western Pennsylv 



has been mined in the mountains on the Potomac below Cui 



It appears occasionally in Northern Middle Virginia, on the western side 



of the Great Valley of Winchester. It increases in importance along 



the western outcrop of the great coal field through Eastern Kentucky, 



velopment in Montgomery county, on the New River, in Southern Vir- 

 ginia, near the line of our section. Here it is seen to consist of two prin- 

 cipal coal-beds and several minor seams. The lowest l>ed reaches the 

 thickness of four feet, and the next one above it is in some places nine 

 feet thick. In the Peak Hills, just east of Wythe, along the hne of the 

 railroad, numerous lenticular deposits of coal are seen, and tinn distorted 

 beds, the whole composing a formation several hundred feet thick. Near 

 the New River, the two beds above-mentioned are seen to be covered by 

 at least a thousand feet of Red Shale ; upon which rests a Subcarboniferous 

 limestone ; which abuts, at the fault, against other limestones belonging to 

 the Lower Silurian age. Between Christiansburg and Blacktown, north 

 of New River, a regular svnclinal coal-basin has been preserved for a few 

 miles upon the eastern side of the great fault, which crosses the river in 

 front of the gap. In this coal-basin the two beds of coal are preserved, 

 but in a crushed condition. To the southwest, two faults cut ott » s'^i- 



.u .o ..,.-.. .o«. .... .'elationship of these great faults to the normal anti- 



clinals and svnclinals of the Appalachian region can be studied to great 

 advantage ; 'the presence of cross faults at high angles being exhibited by 

 the sudden termination of the mountains, and by the tearing open, as it 

 were, of one side of anticlinal coves. „ ,,. 7 t^ 



2. Dvas, order die Zechstein formation und das Boihheffende von Dr. 

 Hanns Bruno Gf.initz, Director des Kon. Mm. Mus., und Professor an 

 der Poly tech. Schule zu Dresden, etc., mit Beitragen der Heeren Robert 

 EiSEi, Rudolph Ludwig, Dr. August Em. Reuss Der Reinhard Richter 

 u. A. Heft H Der Pfianzen der Dyas und Geologisches. 210 pp. 4to, 



