CONEMAITGH FORMATION IN WEST VIRGINIA 211 



marks the double horizon above and below the Ames limestone. Twelve 

 miles farther south, near Ireland, in Lewis county, coal beds are at 240, 

 372, and 429 feet below the Pittsburg. Doctor White sees in the upper 

 beds the Elk Lick and the Barton. It is worth noting that these beds 

 are 4 feet 6 inches and 2 feet 4 inches thick, and that they yield good 

 coal. Eastward the Conemaugh coals are insignificant. On the west 

 side of Lewis county the Vadis record shows that the Morgantown sand- 

 stone, 80 feet thick and beginning at 226 feet, continues to beyond the 

 Harlem horizon. Sandstone in the Mahoning interval is 39 feet thick 

 and ends at 490 feet. No coal is recorded and the red beds are 



125 feet, beginning at 101 feet below the Pittsburg ; 

 38 feet, beginning at 362 feet below the Pittsburg ; 



but the great bed seen in eastern Lewis is not here. 



The records in northern Braxton county are somewhat indefinite, as 

 the distance from the Pittsburg to well curbs is not given exactly. A 

 record said to begin about 350 feet below the Pittsburg shows two red 

 beds, 10 and 30 feet at 71 and 91 feet from the surface, and a third, not 

 measured, is at 145 feet; thence for 365 feet the record is "slate, red 

 rock, and shells" for 365 feet. Other records in this area show a similar 

 condition, so that the great sandstone of the lower Conemaugh, so con- 

 spicuous in eastern Braxton, is here replaced by shale.* 



In Gilmer county one finds near Stouts mills, only a little way west 

 from the Braxton line and 12 miles west from Ireland, in Lewis county, 

 the Morgantown sandstone, 85 feet thick and ending at 274 feet below 

 the Pittsburg. A coal bed is here at 325 feet, but its relations are ob- 

 scure. The red beds are numerous and are distributed through the sec- 

 tion; the highest begins at 99 and the lowest at 529 feet below the Pitts- 

 burg; three thin beds are in the interval of the highest bed at Vadis; a 

 fourth bed answers to the lower one at Vadis, but the reds associated 

 with the Ames limestone are wanting. There is little sandstone below 

 the Morgantown. Fifteen or 16 miles southwest, near Eosedale, on the 

 Braxton border, are the records of a number of wells, all beginning at 

 100 to 150 feet below the Pittsburg coal bed. Taking the latter as the 

 interval, the first sandstone, 126 feet thick, begins at 184 feet and rests 

 on 102 feet of red rock, which is separated by 38 feet of sandstone from 

 100 feet of "slate and red rock." The first looks very like the Morgan- 

 town sandstone and its underlying reds. In these wells sandstone is in- 

 significant in the lower Conemaugh as well as in the Allegheny, yet at 

 barely 10 miles southeast the shales are replaced very largely by sand- 



* Geology of West Virginia : Barbour, toI. ii, p. 238 ; Upshur, vol. ia, p. 349 ; Lewis, 

 vol. i, pp. 255, 257 ; vol. ii, p. 239 ; Braxton, vol. ii, pp. 391-392, 453. 



