474 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ALBANY MEETING 



Catskill, resting on 4,007 feet of Chemung, and succeeded b_y 500 feet of greenish 

 grayish and brown sandstones and shales, with green and red shales, of the "red 

 Pocono," about 800 feet of more or less massive sandstones of the '* gray Pocono," 

 about 300 feet or less of the Mauch Chunk red shale with its interbedded lime- 

 stones, greenish sandstones and shales, and by nearly 200 feet of the Pottsville 

 formation, at the base of the Coal Measures. The gray Pocono forms the main 

 front or brow of the escarpment with its high terrace spurs, while the conglom- 

 erates of the Pottsville form the crest knobs and scalp- terrace. The dip of the 

 formation decreases from 30 degrees in the valley to 8 or 12 degrees in the Pocono, 

 and a very slight inclination to the west at the upper levels of the mountain. 



The mines lie well uj) in the Tipton ravine, in a low spur between the upper 

 forks of the run, about 500 feet above Tipton station and 790 feet below the crest 

 of the Allegheny front, or about 1,012 feet below Bear Pen point 1 mile to the west 

 of the west (Loop Run) mine. Within a stratigraphical interval of 100 feet five 

 coals, from U to 3^ feet in thickness, were reported by I\Ir C. 8. d'lnvilliers. Two 

 at least of these coals have been mined, the output reaching in 1888 a limit of 

 50,000 tons. One mine is still somewdiat extensively operated for country use. 

 The fuel, chiefly from coals " B " and " C," is a low bituminous coal with, accord- 

 ing to two analyses by McCreath, about 58 to 00.88 per cent of fixed carbon. 



Owing to the juxtaposition and generally similar attitude of the coal-bearing 

 terrane along the strike of the gently westward dipping Pocono, the coals in ques- 

 tion have been regarded by the state geologists of Pennsylvania as merely dila- 

 tions of some of the many thin seams occurring in the contiguous Pocono. Com- 

 parisons have l)een made with the grouj) of coals occui-ring among the sandstones 

 and shales of the lower Pocono at Sideling hill, Duncannon, and I'ottsville, and 

 more especially with the thick and valuable beds mined along Toms creek and in 

 Brushy mountain, in southwestern Virginia. The Tipton Run coals have there- 

 fore almost universally been refeired to the carbonaceous group in the lower por- 

 tion of the Pocono, with which they are supposed to be longitudinally continuous. 



As the result of an examination of some plants at the Tipton mines the true age 

 of the coals was recognized and announced in 1883 by I. C. White,* who referred 

 them to the Allegheny series, the next group higher than the Pottsville. This 

 correlation of the beds with the productive Coal Measures, whose nearest outcrop — 

 on the mountain top nearly 2 miles distant — is not less than 1,400 feet higher 

 stratigraphically, was quite contrary to the conclusions reached after a special ex- 

 amination by Mr Ashburner in 1885, t and led to a reinvestigation of the subject 

 by the state geologists. The latter, discounting both the paleobotanical testimony 

 and the evidence of the lithology, again affirmed the indisputably Pocono (basal 

 Lower Carboniferous) age of the coals and published them as such in the final 

 report j and in the maps issued by the state. In view of the circumstances nar- 

 rated, attention deserves to be called again to the correct determination of the Hge 

 of these beds by Doctor White, though the evidence adduced by the latter, being in 

 itself amply sufficient as proof, should scarcely require reiteration or amplification.^ 



*Amer. Geologist, vol. iv, July, 1883, pp. 2.5-:V2. 



t Aun. Rept. Second Geol. Survey of Pennsylvania, 1885 (1886), pp. 250-208, with 2 maps. 



t Summary Final Report, vol. iii, pt. i, 1893, pp. 1(179-1005. 



g Doctor Wiiite's conclusions as to the identity of the Tipton with the Clearfield County coals 

 were reached wholly independently and witliout knowledge of the similar views earlier published 

 by Mr J. W. Scott in the Tj'rone Herald. Mr Scott appears to have been the first to recognize the 

 true age of the Tipton Run coals. 



