W. M. Fontaine— Vespertine Strata of Virginia. 47 



the middle member as on the Greenbrier River, containing gray- 

 flags with coal. It is here fully exposed, and is bv estimate 

 about 350 feet thick. 



The base is composed of forty feet of argillaceous, thick- 

 bedded sandstones of a dull yellowish gray color, succeeded by 

 twenty feet of firm olive colored sandstones. Some one or two 

 thin films of coal occur in the first named, associated with black 

 shale. The second stratum brings us to about the horizon of 

 the lowest rocks seen on Greenbrier River. The succeeding 

 Strata bere are in the main much like those west of the White 

 Sulphur, being mainly gray flags. About fifty feet above the 

 last mentioned stratum we find a true coal system, showing 

 underclays with rootlets. The following is a section of it, 

 beginning at the base: 



1. Bluish-black, sandy shales, 5 feet. 8. Fire clay, 12 inches. 



2. Fire clay, 5 inches. 



3. Coal, 8 inches. 



4. Brown, flaggy sandstones, 3 feet. 



7. Gray sand t 30 feet. 



Slat\ coal, 5-6 inches. 

 Sandstone, 3 feet. 

 Black sandy slate, 15 ft. 



No. 7 contains films and streaks of coal from floated vegetable 

 matter. No. 10 is full of Pinnularia rootlets. No. 13 shows 

 plainly the marks of considerable erosion of the underlying 

 beds. It is charged with carbonaceous matter, and contains 

 films and fragments of coal. Indeed there are evident signs 

 that several of the small coal beds suffered considerably from 

 erosion, before the deposition of the overlying strata. The 

 lower part of No. 13, for some four or five feet, contains large 

 Pigments of No. 1, mixed with others from the under- 

 lying Devonian brown sandstones. Some of the fragments are 

 three or four inches in diameter. With the exception of No. 1, 

 all the black shales of the section seem to be composed of 

 material derived from the red and brown Devonian strata. On 

 losing by weathering the carbon to which they owe their black 

 color, they assume reddish and brown hues. 



The coals are really two in number, disposed in an upper 

 and lower double bed, about thirty feet apart, which accords 

 well with their distribution throughout the Vespertine coal 

 field. The material is very impure, slaty and full of sulphur. 



Over No. 13 we find about seventy-five feet of firm siliceous, 

 rather coarse, bluish-gray sandstones, containing fragments of 

 the lower coal-bearing rocks, with drifted stems and pieces of 

 coal. Lewis Tunnel is cut in these rocks. 



Over this we have twenty feet of gray sandstone of firm 

 texture, graduating into ten feet of firm thin bedded shales, 



