±20 I. C. WHITE HORIZON OF THE KANAWHA BLACK FLINT 



the part of the observer in keeping hold of the other members of the 

 section below, as well as above this flint stratum, it readily leads to 

 correct and accurate knowledge concerning the stratigraphic horizons of 

 the principal Kanawha coal beds. For this reason it becomes a very 

 important matter that such a conspicuous and valuable member of the 

 Coal Measures should have its exact place in the geologic column de- 

 termined beyond question. 



Results of the first Investigations by the Writer 



In 1884 the writer spent several months in the study of the Kanawha 

 Coal Measures, collecting data for Bulletin No. 65 of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey. In this work every stratum in the series from the Pittsburg 

 coal near Charleston down to this black flint, as well as below it through 

 the Pottsville series, was passed in review many times. As the result 

 of this field study, the conclusion was reached that the Kanawha black 

 flint marked a zone just above the Upper Freeport coal of the Allegheny 

 formation, and I so published and described it in 1885 in volume VI of 

 u The Virginias." This conclusion was deduced from purely strati- 

 graphic evidence, based on a wide comparative study of the entire coal 

 series of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, eastern and 

 southern Ohio, and the adjoining regions of Kentucky. 



Investigations by Campbell and Mendenhall 



In 1895 Messrs M. R. Campbell and W/CJ Mendenhall, of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, undertook the task of classifying the Coal Measures 

 on the New and Kanawha rivers. Their report was published in the 

 Seventeenth Annual Report (part II, pages 479-511) of the U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey. It contains many beautiful pictures, some observations 

 on physiography, baselevels, and peneplains and some remarkable 

 errors, but no detailed sections. Their net result in stratigraphy was 

 to confirm in a general way what the writer had done ten years pre- 

 viously, and although dissenting from some of his identifications, they 

 furnished no evidence against them. When they came to.the problem 

 of identifying and classifying the Kanawha series anew, they frankly 

 gave it up in these words : 



" Stratigraphically they can not be accurately subdivided without an amount of 

 detailed work altogether out of proportion to the value of the results obtained."* 



The writer will agree that it required an immense amount of detailed 



*Page 499, 16c. cit. 



