376 W. M. Fontame— Conglomerate Series of West Virginia. 



member thickens at a more rapid rate. At Grayson, in Carter 

 county, both together are only 90 feet thick, and\he lowest coal 

 is a rnere streak formed between the base of the formation and 

 the underlying limestone. Farther south west, in Morgan county, 

 the upper member is 150 feet thick, and the lower member only 

 eight feet, and contains a twelve-inch bed of coal. In Estell 

 county, the upper member measures 200 feet and the lower fifty 

 feet, with the coal bed increased to twenty-seven inches. On 

 the southern border of the State, the lower"member increases to 

 225 feet, and contains two workable and three other thin beds of 

 coal. The upper member does not now exceed eighty feet. This 

 upper member is No. 21 of the Ealeigh sectioru 



Passing into Tennessee, we learn from Safford that the western 

 outcrop presents the same essential features as in Kentucky. 

 The red rocks of the Umbral are wanting, and the coal system 

 rests on the sub-carboniferous limestone. But in Tennessee the 

 thickness attained on the south border of Kentucky does not 

 seem to be maintained in the counties immediately south of that 

 point. Here also along the west outcrop in Fentress, White, 

 and Franklin counties, the series is double, consisting of an 

 upper sandstone and a lower coal-bearing portion. Of this latter 

 Safford says, '' It consists of shales and sandstones, the latter 

 sometimes absent, and ranges from a few feet to about 200." 

 It contains two, sometimes three, rarely more, seams of coal. 

 These are often too thin for mining, but locally swell out and 

 form valuable deposits, from two and a half to four or five feet 

 in thickness." 



This thinning out in the direction immediatelv south of 

 Clinton county, Kentucky, seems to indicate that in" Tennessee 

 the west end of the basin sweeps around more to the south. 

 Safford's sections show that these rocks increase in thickness 

 from west to east with an increase of the sandstones, while the 

 coals diminish greatly in the most easterly portions of the field; 

 for while the west outcrop has the character above given, we 

 find at the ^tna mines, a point farther east, a thickness of 563 

 feet, including the upper conglomerate, and at Lookout Moun- 

 tain, the most easterly point of the sections given in the south - 

 em part of the field, we have 673 feet, composed mainiy of 

 coarse sandstone, with hardly any coal. This diminution of 

 coal eastward agrees with the facts given by Professor J. P. 

 Lesley for Wise, Russel, and Tazewell counties, Virginia. 



One of the most striking points of difference between the 

 strata shown on New Eiver, West Virginia, and the west out- 

 crop, is the disappearance in the latter of the thick deposits of 

 the red Umbral shales underlying the conglomerate series in 

 West Virginia. This is explained by the fact that these sedi- 

 ments are derived from the incoherent red shales, so abundant 



