156 J. J. STEVENSON — CARBONIFEROUS OF APPALACHIAN BASIN 



Feet. Inches 



17. Coal 4 3 5 



18. Sandstone and shale 64 4 



19. Coal 3, Pocahontas 5 2 



20. Sandstone and slate 27 5J 



21. Coal, slate, and bone 1 9 



22. Slate and sandstone. 10 10£ 



23. Coal bed 2 7 



24. Slate and sandstone 47 



25. Coal bed I 9 



26. Sandstone and slate 202 2 



to red beds of the Mauch Chunk, giving 295 feet for thickness of the 

 Pocahontas and 707 for the Clark and Quinnimont. If the tentative 

 identification of the Quinnimont coal bed be correct, the Quinnimont 

 formation shows a notable decrease and the Clark formation an equally 

 notable increase. As the total of both is very nearly that assigned by 

 Mr Campbell, it may be better for the present to look on the coal bed 

 number 10 as one of the smaller beds of the formation, with the Quin- 

 nimont to be sought for in the largely concealed interval, number 11. 

 Doctor White suggests that numbers 2 and 4 may represent the " Sewell" 

 coal bed, a wholly probable suggestion, as here one is on the border of 

 the area in which subdivision of coal beds is as much the rule as in 

 other regions it is the exception. The section below number 12 was ob- 

 tained in a boring. As Welch is at least several miles from any outcrop 

 of the Pocahontas, the record connects the southern area of that bed 

 with the Guyandotte area at the north, where it again comes to the sur- 

 face and is commercially important .* 



WEST VIRGINIA 



McDowell and Mercer counties, to which reference has been made 

 already, are in West Virginia. Farther north in this state, in Wyoming, 

 Raleigh, and Fayette, higher rocks are reached, so that one finds at the 

 top the Charleston sandstone of Campbell, about 300 feet of thick sand- 

 stones broken by important coal beds; the Kanawha formation, a mass 

 of shales, sandstones, and strangely varying coal beds, in all more than 

 1,000 feet thick, with the Sewell, now 600 to 800 feet. The Raleigh, 

 Quinnimont, Clark, and Pocahontas are still present, but all showing 

 changes. 



Mr Campbell points out that these lower formations, generally speak- 

 ing, retain their thickness and characteristics as far north as southern 



* A. S. McCreath : Mineral Wealth of Virginia, 1884, p. 107. 

 M. R. Campbell : U. S. Geol. Survey folios, Pocahontas, 1896; Tazewell, 1897. 

 I. C White : West Virginia Geol. Survey, vol. ii, 1903, p. 620. 



