CHARACTERISTICS OF UPPER FREEPORT COAL 123 



mediately above the sandstone group and extends in a bright red band, 

 as plain as a chalk mark on the floor, clear across the state, as well as 

 through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, th,us making a complete 

 circle of red deposits, occupying always the same relative position in 

 the center of the Conemaugh, midway between two important coal beds, 

 the Pittsburg and Upper Freeport. In this red shale belt there also 

 occurs an important fossiliferous limestone horizon, the " green crinoidal 

 limestone " of the Pennsylvania series, which has been traced from cen- 

 tral West Virginia northward to the Pennsylvania line and through 

 southwestern Pennsylvania into Ohio and across that state without a 

 break to where it reenters West Virginia again at Huntington. In addi- 

 tion to this, the oil-drillers have traced this red horizon underground 

 across the state, since it caves readily and gives them much trouble. 

 They term it the " Big red cave,' 1 and never fail to find it at the proper 

 geological level. 



STRATIGRAPHIC RELATIONS OF THE FLINT 



Hence with all of this evidence from stratigraphy, there can remain 

 no doubt as to the place of this flint at the base of the Conemaugh, and 

 that the Allegheny series of Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia 

 must be found below it in the Kanawha region instead of above, as con- 

 cluded by Dr David White from his study of the. fossil plants. 



Analysis of David White's Conclusions 



In the paper referred to, David White concludes that most of the 

 Kanawha coals below tnis black flint are older than the Allegheny coals 

 and intermediate between them and the Pottsville series, and that hence 

 my correlations of them with the several members of the Allegheny 

 must be completely erroneous. 



In order to sustain this conclusion Dr David White was compelled to 

 find a place for the Allegheny coals somewhere, so he cut off the lower 

 half of the Conemaugh and said, here they are. It is not my intention 

 to deal with the question of the equivalency of the Allegheny and Kana- 

 wha coals in the present paper, since this whole subject will be treated in 

 detail in my forthcoming report on the coals of West Virginia now in 

 preparation, and to be published during 1902 as volume II of the West 

 Virginia Geological Survey, but it is proper here to show the inherent 

 improbability of David White's conclusions with reference to this branch 

 of the subject. 



He will agree with me that the Lower Carboniferous beds, the Green- 

 brier limestone, and Mauch Chunk red shale thicken from 800 feet at 



