208 J. J. STEVENSON CARBONIFEROUS OF APPALACHIAN BASIN 



While the greater part of the Rockcastle has disappeared northward, 

 so as to bring the Sharon sandstone and even higher beds into contact 

 with the Lower Carboniferous within the bituminous areas, it seems 

 wholly probable that the whole or a very great part of the Rockcastle is 

 present in the southern Anthracite field, where the " Lykens Valley " 

 coals are likety to prove equivalents of beds seen in the southern part 

 of the Appalachian basin. 



Some matters connected with these correlations need especial consid- 

 eration. 



The Kanawha Valley 



In the Virginia report for 1839 Professor William B. Rogers described 

 the beds along the Kanawha, and drew the plane of separation between 

 the Upper and the Lower Coal Series at the top of a calcareous sand- 

 stone, fossiliferous, and 140 feet above the Black flint. No very definite 

 explanation of the terms was given in this report, but in that for 1840 

 the Kanawha deposits above Charleston are placed in the " Lower Coal 

 Group," which is succeeded by the " Lower Shale and Sandstone Group," 

 extending upward to the Pittsburg coal bed.* The Kanawha formation 

 of Campbell is almost accuratel)' the equivalent of the " Lower Coal 

 Group," which Rogers thought to be the same as the lower productive 

 Coal Measures of Professor H. D. Rogers in Pennsylvania, now the Alle- 

 gheny formation. 



In 1871 Mr Ridgway regarded several of the Kanawha coal beds as 

 equivalent to certain beds of the Pennsylvania Lower Coal Measures 

 (Allegheny) ; and in the next year Stevenson, after a cursory examina- 

 tion, went somewhat further in determination of equivalents. In 1874 

 Professor Fontaine came to the same general conclusion, laying stress 

 on the fossils of the Black flint, which appeared to correlate it with a 

 black shale underlying the Mahoning sandstone near the Pennsylvania 

 line. In 1876 Mr Maury recognized the Kanawha beds as equivalent to 

 the Pennsylvania Lower coals, but he went no further in detailed deter- 

 mination than to assert that the sandstone overlying the Black flint is 

 the same with the Mahoning of Pennsylvania, now taken in Doctor 

 White's grouping as the lowest bed of the Conemaugh.f 



In 1874 Stevenson, during a reconnaissance across West Virginia, ex- 

 amined the greatly expanded coal bed in Randolph and Upshur coun- 

 ties known as the Roaring Creek coal bed. Finding there a massive 



* W. B. Rogers : Report of progress of the Geol. Survey of Virginia for 1839, p. 135 ; for 1840, p. 73. 

 f W. M. Fontaine : Great Conglomerate of New river, pp. 4G1-463. 

 M. F. Maury, Jr. : Resources of West Virginia, p. 196. 



