15. SPRING TOWNSHIP. F 2 . 343 



The Hamilton lower s7iale, (VIII.) 



As with the Marcellns so with these shales. Spring town- 

 ship makes a very fine display. They crop out extensively 

 round the west end of Mahanoy ridge and Crawley hill, ex- 

 posed by the erosion which has removed so vast a mass of 

 material from the western end of the township. Along the 

 road leading from Little German v to McAffee's fulling mill 

 these shales are cut through for several hundred yards, and 

 can be well examined though no complete section is exposed. 

 Their sandy nature is very evident ; in many places they 

 are thin sandstones, but the sand}' beds are thinner and 

 finer than in Centre township. Their great barrenness in 

 fossils is also conspicuous, long search upon this line of ex- 

 posure having failed to discover anything except a few un- 

 recognizable fragments of brachiopod shells. 



The white meager soil afforded by the decomposition of 

 these shales is very conspicuous in this district. 



Further south the outcrop of the Lower Hamilton shales 

 affords few or no exposures, being covered as usual with the 

 wreckage of the Hamilton sandstone. 



The valley caused by the Little Germany fault, along 

 which runs the road to New Bloomfield, affords a very fine 

 display of the lower part of the Hamilton lower shale. The 

 high knob about a mile from the hamlet is entirely composed 

 of these rocks with a base of black shale. They are brought 

 up by the fault and abut against the upper part of the same 

 shales on the other side of it. The throw of the fault is 

 here between 400 and 500 feet. 



These shales skirt the valley along the north foot of 

 Crawley hill, ascending high up its flanks. Near the village 

 a tunnel was lately driven by Mr. Wm. Foose for about 110 

 feet into them, in the hope of finding coal "in the hill." 

 This is the only instance with which I have met in the 

 county where such an attempt has been made in the greenish 

 shales of the Lower Hamilton. Yet "it is an ill wind that 

 blows nobody good." On the spoilbank at the mouth of 

 the tunnel I found the only crinoid, I had almost said the 

 only fossil, in tolerably good condition, which 1 have ob- 



