THE KANAWHA VALLEY 209 



sandstone of great thickness, he identified it with the Mahoning sand- 

 stone, and the underlying coal bed with the Upper Freeport of Pennsyl- 

 vania. A gap of at least 60 miles intervened between the Upshur locality 

 and the Pennsylvania line, near which, in 1870, he had made correct 

 correlations with the Pennsylvania beds; but this evidently was not a 

 matter worth considering. For many years no detailed study of the 

 intervening space was made, and Stevenson's identifications were ac- 

 cepted as accurate. Ten years later Doctor White followed the Roaring 

 Creek coal bed from Upshur county to the Kanawha river, and found it 

 to be the equivalent of the Stockton coal bed, which, by common con- 

 sent of all previous observers, had been regarded as practically at the 

 horizon of the Upper Freeport coal bed. The careful tracing of the sec- 

 tion by Doctor White evidently confirmed the conclusions of all who 

 had gone before him* 



Several years after the publication of Doctor White's results Mr David 

 White collected plants at several horizons along the Kanawha river. 

 The testimony of these plants contradicted absolutely the conclusion 

 that the Stockton is Upper Freeport, and required that a great part of 

 the Kanawha formation be placed in the Pottsville. Still later, Doctor 

 White, after a study of the region northward from Upshur county, sus- 

 pected the accuracy of the identification of the Roaring Creek coal bed 

 with the Upper Freeport, and suggested that the bed might be correlated 

 with the Lower Kittanning of Pennsylvania, and that the Upper Free- 

 port might prove to be represented on the Kanawha by the Mason coal 

 bed. This suggestion proved to be correct in the main, for, as has been 

 seen, the Stockton coal bed is at the horizon of Kentucky coal 6, which 

 is the Lower Kittanning, being at only a few feet above the Ferriferous 

 limestone. Doctor White's sections, north from the Kanawha, show 

 conclusively that the Stockton can not be higher than the Kittanning 

 horizon, so that it is in the lower portion of the Allegheny formation. 

 The matter is now sufficiently clear. There is no conflict between stra- 

 tigraphy and paleobotany respecting the main horizons. The conflict 

 was but apparent, and was due solely to hasty correlations by the ear- 

 lier observers.f 



Of the coal beds found along the eastern outcrop north from the Ka- 

 nawha none except the Campbells creek can be correlated closely with 

 Pottsville coal beds elsewhere. Evidently the tendency to divide, shown 

 by beds along the Kanawha, prevails for many miles northward, and 



* I. C. White : Catalogue West Virginia University for 1884-1885, p. 59. 



fD. White : Pottsville series along New river, West Virginia. Bull. Geol. Soc. of Amer., vol. vi, 

 pp. 305 et seq. 

 I. C White : W. Va. Geol. Survey, vol. ii, p. 603. 



