KENTUCKY 97 



Feet. Inches 



3. Shale and clay with coal 5 inches 10 



4. Conglomerate and shale ... 75 



5. Shales 50 



6. Coal bed 3 



7. Shales 15 0* 



8. Coal bed 1 



9. Shales 35 



10. Coal bed 



to the Lower Carboniferous limestone. A coal bed is seen in the shales 

 separating the plates of the conglomerate; another was found farther 

 south in Clay county within 60 feet of the top of the conglomerate. 

 These coals foreshadow the condition farther south, where coal beds 

 within the Sharon sandstone become important. Mr Hodge finds two 

 streaks of impure limestone here, one in Number 5 and another about 

 100 feet lower.* 



Jackson and Rockcastle counties are in order southwest from Estill. 

 The section evidently reaches only to the shaly sandstone overlying 

 the Sharon sandstone. Mr Sullivan finds 8 coal beds in this lower por- 

 tion of the Pottsville, which farther south has been designated the 

 " Rockcastle group " by Professor Crandall; these are at 30, 45, 50-65, 

 75-95, 120-150, 185-200, and 225 feet above the Lower Carboniferous 

 limestone, nearly all of which attain some importance locall}^. The 

 main bed is that at about 60 feet as described by him and Mr Lesle}^. 

 The whole thickness of this Rockcastle group is not far from 300 feet, 

 the top portion being the coarse upper plate, evidently its upper por- 

 tion, and the highest coal is very near the place of that observed by Mr 

 Hodge in Clay county. 



The increasing coarseness of the lower members of this Rockcastle 

 group has become ver}' distinct here. Mr Sullivan speaks of the coals 

 as " interconglomerate," for in the intervals separating them are ledges 

 of sandstone consisting largely of " hailstone grit." The important bed 

 at about 60 feet above the limestone rests on a thick conglomerate ledge. 

 The subconglomerate shales of more northern counties become replaced 

 by sandstones near the border. The westward thinning of the measures 

 observed in passing from Menifee into Montgomery is more sharply 

 marked in Rockcastle, where the beds have spread apparently almost to 

 the original border. Mr Sullivan says that in this county the thickness 

 of the group varies from 45 to 250 feet. Mr Lesley gives the matter 

 more in detail, for he says that the upper plate, 80 feet thick in south- 

 east Rockcastle, is insignificant in the northwestern part of the county, 



*G. M. Hodge: Preliminary Reports on the Southeast Kentucky Coal Field, 1887, pp. 95, 108, 

 109, sec. 92. 



