99 



ceivc an especial notice, I will defer any further description of the 

 profile for the present. 



The region to which the portion of the profile just described refers, 

 abounds in objects of practical as well as curious interest. 



The coals of the Little North mountain, Catawba mountain, &c. 

 are among the most prominent of these in an economical point of 

 view ; and should the reasonable expectations to which their disco- 

 very has given rise, not be disappointed, will influence in no small 

 degree the prosperity of one of the most extensive and important re- 

 gions of the state. From the Potomac to the south-western counties, 

 the minor ranges of mountains, rising in general along the western 

 boundary of the valley, are known to include beds of this mineral in 

 the various conditions of a pure anthracite, and a compound contain- 

 ing variable but never large proportions of bituminous matter, and 

 which may accordingly be denominated semi-bituminous coal. In 

 Berkeley county, on Sleepy creek and elsewhere, openings have 

 been made, from which an anthracite of the very purest character is 

 obtained. In Frederick, Shenandoah, Rockingham, Augusta, Bote- 

 tourt and Montgomery, similar discoveries have been made ; the 

 coal of the four former counties, as far as yet examined, being nearly 

 identical with that in Berkeley, while that found in Botetourt and 

 Montgomery contains a considerable portion of bitumen, though far 

 less than that of ordinary bituminous coal. The veins which have 

 as yet been examined, vary from three to seven feet in thickness. 

 That represented in the profile, dipping west into the Little North 

 mountain, near Coal run, in Rockingham, is about four feet thick. 

 Several openings at different points in the neighbourhood, present 

 no perceptible variation in the character of the coal, which is a pure 

 anthracite, capable, as experiment has shown, of burning with but 

 little flame, and with the production of a very intense heat. At this 

 place, and it would appear also in others in the same range, the coal 

 readily falls into small fragments, exhibiting numerous rubbed and 

 shining surfaces, leading to the impression, which an examination of 

 the enclosing rocks would also indicate, that a dislocation of the 

 strata has occurred, attended with a sliding and grinding action of 

 the roof and floor of the veins, breaking up and Assuring the included 

 coal, and occasioning by the mutual attrition of the contiguous sur- 

 faces that peculiar lustre and striated appearance which they invari- 

 ably exhibit. In some of the veins, however, this crushing effect 



