THE MAXVILLK 93 



of shallow water. The irregularities in thickness, as shown in tlie West 

 Virginia records, seem to show that the subsidence was associated with 

 petty crumplings of the beds. 



THE MAXVILLE 



In the Anthracite strip of Pennsylvania the Maxville has not been 

 recognized north from the Broad Top area, where the impure limestones 

 above the main deposit have been taken as its representative. As these 

 Umestones thicken southwardly at the expense of the shales, the latter 

 to some distance above the impure beds should be taken as Maxville. 

 Such shales make up a great part of the section in the southern and 

 middle anthracite fields, but in the northern field it is doubtful if the}^ 

 extend as far north as Scranton, for the deposits there and northward 

 are of the Shenango type. There is not much reason to suppose that 

 Maxville deposits of any sort extend northward beyond the central line 

 of Pennsylvania in the Allegheny region, since in Blair county the whole 

 of the Mauch Chunk is but 283 feet, while in Center county it is esti- 

 mated at not more than 150 feet, whereas in Broad Top, only 30 miles 

 east, the Shenango and Maxville are 910 feet. In western Pennsylvania, 

 as shown by exposures under Laurel and Chestnut hills, as well as by 

 oil-well records, the northern limit is not far beyond the line of the Con- 

 emaugh gaps, considerably south from that of the Tuscumbia. It is 

 barely possible that the western boundary crosses into the Panhandle of 

 West V^irginia, but in any event it lies near the Pennsylvania line and 

 passes southwardly across Wetzel county of West Virginia, through west- 

 ern Doddridge into Gilmer, where it turns westwardly into Wirt, central 

 Wood, and Jackson, from which it passes into Ohio. No well records in 

 the latter state have been published, but the line evidently bends north- 

 wardly, for the Maxville limestone outcrops in Perry, and it has been 

 found in eastern Muskingum, whence Andrews followed it into Ken- 

 tucky, where it is the upper part of the Saint Louis. Thence southward 

 it is recognized easily as the lower part of SafFord's Mountain limestone 

 and as McCalley's Hartselle. 



Along the eastern outcrop in the Allegheny region the Maxville lime- 

 stone increases slowly southward to beyond the Potomac ; but farther 

 west, under the great anticlinals of southwest Pennsylvania and West 

 Virginia, it increases rapidly, becoming important commercially before 

 reaching the line between those states. The mass thickens and becomes 

 more calcareous southwardly, attaining its greatest thickness in the 

 region of the Virginia Alleghanies or even farther eastward — that is, in 

 the equivalent of the Pennsylvania Anthracite strij). One must remem- 

 ber, however, that the Maxville is hardly to be considered as limestone 



