122 I. C. WHITE HORIZON OF THE* KANAWHA BLACK FLINT 



and other portions of West Virginia, and not on the tracing of any par- 

 ticular coal bed or any other one member of the Allegheny formation 

 across West Virginia from Pennsylvania to the Kanawha region. During 

 the present year I have attacked the problem in question by direct trac- 

 ing of the Upper Freeport coal and its'associated strata from the Penn- 

 sylvania line along their eastern outcrops across to the Kanawha valley. 

 In this I was entirely successful, and the result is a complete confirma- 

 tion of my original conclusion with reference to the horizon of the Upper 

 Freeport coal on the Great Kanawha, namely, that it is the first one 

 below the black flint stratum, and hence this latter member belongs near 

 the base of the Conemaugh formation, or just above the top of the Allegheny, 

 where my studies in 1884 first placed it, instead of near the base of the 

 Allegheny, to which position Dr David White has assigned it on the basis 

 of fossil plants. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF. THE UPPER FREEPORT COAL 



In this direct tracing the following elements enabled me to keep hold 

 of the Upper Freeport coal : 



First. The facies of the bed itself. It is always a multiple seam, with 

 two or more divisions of slate or bone, the whole being characteristic to 

 one who has learned to know a coal bed as one learns to recognize an 

 individual from his physiognomy. This is an acquired faculty, and 

 some people may reside on the Coal Measures all their lives and never 

 attain it, just as some persons have difficulty in remembering human 

 faces. 



Second. The Mahoning sandstone series as a whole, which is easily 

 followed from hill to hill in the topographic features it makes, even 

 without recourse to its detailed lithologic structure, in which it possesses 

 a peculiarity of its own very marked to the practiced eye. 



Third. The Mahoning coal, a rather persistent member of the Cone- 

 maugh, occurring between the two members of the Mahoning sandstone 

 at an interval above the Upper Freeport, varying from 40 to 80 feet. 



Fourth. The Masontown coal, coming 10 to 20 feet above the top of 

 the Upper Mahoning sandstone, its roof shales very rich in fossil animal 

 remains at the north and in fossil plants at the south, and the coal itself 

 always bright and pure, whether 1 foot or 4 feet in thickness, and nearly 

 always present in the series at an interval of 120 to 200 feet above the 

 Upper Freeport. 



Fifth. A characteristic sandstone, 30 to 50 feet thick, overlying the 

 Masontown coal and capping the highest summits along the outcrop of 

 the Mahoning sandstone. 



Sixth. The great "red bed horizon," which makes its appearance irii- 



