ALLEGHENY FORMATION TN WEST VIRGINIA 135 



horizon. The Flint holds the place of the limestone seen in Barbour 

 county.* 



Returning now to Barbour county at the north, another line may be 

 followed to the Kanawha river at Charleston. 



At many places along the Valley river as well as in the Eoaring Creek 

 region, one finds at 10 to 25 feet below the main Brookville another 

 bench resembling the main coal in structure, but usually of inferior 

 quality. 



The Brookville (Arden, Eoaring Creek) coal bed is mined at many 

 localities in Barbour, Upshur, and Randolph counties, in what is known 

 as the Roaring Creek field, where it usually yields, after removal of part- 

 ings, about 7 feet of coal. In its tendency to break up into many 

 benches it resembles the Upper Freeport of southern Pennsylvania even 

 more than it does the Brookville in that area, and this resemblance, added 

 to the presence of the great overlying sandstone, led Stevenson into the 

 mischievous error of correlating this bed with the Upper Freeport. The 

 variations in thickness and quality are extreme, there being at one local- 

 ity, according to Stevenson, 22 feet of shale and coal, wholly worthless, 

 while at a short distance away the bed is double and only 4 feet 6 inches 

 thick. Doctor White's sections show it in this area 10 feet or less above 

 the Roaring Creek (Pottsville) sandstone and underlying a massive 

 pebbly sandstone often unbroken for 60 feet. 



The Buckhannon enters Valley river at about 5 miles south from 

 Philippi. In ascending this stream one goes southwest for somewhat 

 more than 5 miles and the Brookville coal bed remains above water level ; 

 but at the Barbour-Upshur line the direction is changed to west and the 

 coal goes under quickly, so that at Buckhannon, 12 or 13 miles south- 

 west from Philippi, it is thought by Doctor White to be not less than 300 

 feet under the stream's bed. Southward from that place it rises rapidly, 

 and at Cutrights, where it is thought to be about 80 feet under the river, 

 the exposed section is: 



Feet 



1. Silieious limestone 5 



2. Concealed, red shale TO 



3. Massive sandstone 30 



4. Coal Blossom 



5. Marly shale, concealed 35 



6. Massive sandstone 25 



7. Concealed 50 



8. Coal 3 



9. Fireclay and shale 6 



10. Massive sandstone 30 



11. Concealed to stream 25 



* I. C. White : Geology of West Virginia, vol. ii. pp. 363-366, 368-369, 370-371, 459. 



