KENTUCKY 105 



and Martin counties to the Tug fork of Big Sandy river at the West 

 Virginia line. He followed the Sharon sandstone, with its underlying 

 coal bed, into Wolfe county, where he found a coal bed, the Sharon, at 

 SO feet above it, the interval being filled with shale. On Stillwater 

 creek, in Wolfe, he gives a section showing the Sharon at 61 feet below 

 the Quakertown, and there he first saw the concretions in the shale, 

 which he describes as occurring sometimes in almost continuous beds, 

 while at others they are separated masses weighing tons. These he 

 found thoroughly characteristic of the horizon from this locality to the 

 Tug fork of Sand}' river. The Quakertown coal bed, though only 2 feet 

 thick, is triple. Eastward its partings thicken, so that at 5 miles away 

 the thickness is somewhat more than 11 feet. A similar structure was 

 observed in southwest Magoffin, but farther east the bed becomes shaly 

 and the interval to the Sharon coal bed diminishes, becoming 49 feet in 

 central and 16 feet in east Magoffin, where the upper bed is represented 

 by 17 feet of bituminous shale. On the border between Magoffin and 

 Johnson the interval is but " a few feet." Eastwardly they diverge, and 

 the Quakertown, which had been merely a mass of bituminous shale, 

 again carries coal. The higher beds are not shown in Mr Lyon's 

 Magoffin sections, but they are present farther north in the region 

 studied by Professor Crandall. The shales underlying the Sharon coal 

 bed and carrying the calcareous concretions are so well marked on Lick- 

 ing river of Magoffin that Mr Lyon terms them the "Licking shales," 

 and he states that they are reached in all the deeper valle3's for 13 miles 

 eastward, where, though sometimes showing more or less of sandstone, 

 they retain all their characteristics. At one locality on the river he 

 found a thin coal bed in these shales at 71 feet below the Sharon. 



In Johnson county the Quakertown is 61 feet above the Sharon and 

 both are thin. The " Licking shales " increase in thickness and event- 

 ually become 150 feet, foreshadowing the still greater increase within 

 the counties farther south along the Virginia line. For a few miles the 

 Sharon coal bed is below drainage, though the Quakertown appears in 

 all the sections ; but it is reached again on Little Paint creek near the 

 Levisa fork of Big Sandy river, where it is 34 feet below the lower split 

 of the Quakertown and overlies 28 feet of shale carrying the character- 

 istic calcareous bands and concretions. Higher beds are reached on 

 Johns creek, east from Levisa fork, for there the section is 



Feet. Inches 



1 . Sandstone and shales 34 



2. Coal bed 6 6 



Coal 2 4 



Clay 4 



Bituminous shale 1 10 



Coal 2 



