74 J. J. STEVENSON CARBONIFEROUS OF APPALACHIAN BASIN 



The Clarion coal bed proper, 15 to 20 feet lower, is the limestone vein 

 of Vinton county, Ohio, and is the more persistent bed, though not often 

 of economic importance. In the first and second bituminous basins of 

 Pennsylvania it is wanting south from the Conemaugh river and west- 

 ward from the Chestnut Hill anticline; it disappears quickly in West 

 Virginia; but it may be represented on the Kanawha river and south- 

 westward by the coal seen occasionally above the Black flint. This bed 

 becomes very indefinite in southern Ohio and occurs so rarely in Kentucky 

 that it is not recognized in the generalized section. It is quite likely 

 that at not a few localities the Brookville has been mistaken for this bed. 



The Clarion sandstone, Hecla of southern Ohio, is present in many 

 places between the Clarion and Brookville coal beds and is rather more 

 persistent than the other sandstones ; yet it is frequently replaced in part 

 or in whole by shale, at times argillaceous. Along the southeasterly out- 

 crop from Eandolph county, West Virginia, to the Kentucky line the 

 whole space from the Brookville coal bed to the Upper Freeport is filled 

 with sandstone, interrupted only by coal beds and thin shales ; but this, in 

 part the Charleston sandstone of Mr M. E. Campbell, is for the most 

 part coarse and evidently marks proximity to a shoreline, as it extends 

 westwardly for only a few miles, changing gradually into shale and finer 

 sandstone. A similar condition is revealed by oil-well records in Ohio, 

 Marshall, Wetzel, and Tyler counties of West Virginia, along the central 

 portion of the basin. Whether or not the sandstone areas of those coun- 

 ties are one can not be asserted, but the records are so numerous as to sug- 

 gest continuity of the deposit. The irregularity in outline of the sand- 

 stone area is as irregular as that of open sand in the main oil-sands of 

 Pennsylvania. The change from hard sandstone to fine shale and again 

 to sandstone takes place at times within a few rods. 



The Putnam Hill limestone Gray limestone of northern Ohio; apparently 



E. B. Andrews, 1870. absent in Pennsylvania and Kentucky ; 



Kanawha black flint of West Virginia. 



Within Pennsylvania and the greater part of West Virginia, as well as 

 in Kentucky, the Brookville coal bed underlies coarse or fine detrital ma- 

 terial from the land ; but in northern Ohio, at a short distance west from 

 the Pennsylvania line, a new element appears in the section, which is per- 

 sistent thence almost to the Kentucky line and is as useful to the Ohio 

 geologist as the Vanport limestone is to the student in Pennsylvania. 

 It always carries a marine fauna and in southern Ohio bears the same 

 relation to the Ferriferous of Andrews that it does in northern Ohio to 

 the Vanport or Ferriferous of Pennsylvania. In Barbour county of 

 West Virginia, on the eastern outcrop, a limestone appears at a few feet 



