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nerally such as to present a dip outwards on both their eastern and 

 western sides. Progressing westwards, the overlying slate is in- 

 creased in thickness by the addition of other, and not exactly similar 

 beds, over which, and generally dipping to the west, we find the 

 sandstones and slates on the western flank of the Alleghany moun- 

 tain as presented in the neighbourhood of the White Sulphur springs. 

 Among the numerous ranges of similar structure to that exhibited 

 in the profile, and which are usually denoted by the common name 

 of Alleghany, veins of coal have been discovered in many places, 

 and the black shale usually accompanying this mineral is of frequent 

 occurrence. One of these veins is exhibited on the profile, as 

 seen in the vicinity of Crowe's, near the base of the Sweet spring 

 mountain. A similar vein about three miles north of Lewisburg, 

 furnishes a coal which, according to the trials which have been 

 made of it both in smith's forges and in ordinary grates, has been 

 shown to be of good quality. Most, if not all of these coals, are of 

 the semi-bituminous character, and are, therefore, not much prone 

 to cake while burning. 



Bands of fossiliferous slate and sandstone are exposed to view in 

 many places among the mountain ridges of this region. The hard 

 dark brownish sandstone, generally seen lying in bands of a few 

 inches thickness, is often largely stocked with fossil impressions. 

 A single stroke of the hammer will frequently reveal, over an ex- 

 tensive even surface of the fractured rock, multitudes of such casts, 

 chiefly the joints of encrini of various species ; and so common is 

 the fossiliferous rock throughout these mountains, that a large pro- 

 portion of the broken masses met with in the channels of the streams 

 and in the numerous dry ravines which form the beds of winter tor- 

 rents, are rich in curious and instructive fossil traces. 



The calcareous matter which once formed so large a portion of 

 these various rocks in the shape of shells and zoophytes, has en- 

 tirely disappeared, leaving hollow moulds, marking the form and 

 character of the fossils which have been dissolved away. Yet so 

 distinctly do these casts preserve all the delicate lines and marks 

 of their originals or seals, that they furnish the scientific observer 

 with a sufficiently definite knowledge of their peculiarities to enable 

 him to refer them to their proper places in the arrangements of the 

 naturalist, and by comparing them with the fossils of the other 



