J. J. Stevenson—Faults of Southwest Virginia. 265 
New River. The Stony Ridge fault begins in Russell County 
and continues thence through Tazewell into Mercer County of 
West Virginia. The Abb’s Valley begins in Tazewell County 
and extends into Mercer County. These two faults do not 
appear to reach New River, but of this the writer may not 
speak positively as he has not crossed their place near the river. 
The intervals between these faults increases eastwardly. 
The Copper Creek fault enters from Tennessee, passes through 
Scott County and within a few miles in Russell County disap- 
pears in the Hik Garden anticlinal, a fold with double or triple 
crest, which is followed easily through Russell and Tazewell 
Counties into Bland; but soon after entering the last county a 
double fault, the Winonah, arises from the anticlinal, which, 
at a few miles farther, gives off from its northerly side a sec- 
ond, that of Buckhorn Mountain. These two faults cross the 
New River and enter Craig County, but they evidently disap- 
pear a little way beyond, as they do not appear there in 
Rogers’s cross-section. Where the Buckhorn fault begins, the 
interval to the other is only a few rods, but at New River it is 
almost two miles. The Winonah, like the Copper Creek fault, 
is in Knox, but it holds a vertical wall of white Medina in the 
crevice. It evidently gives off a similar branch beyond New 
River, for there two lines of white Medina appear in the Knox 
limestones. 
The Saltville fault, the North Holston fault of Lesley’s 1871 
memoir, is,.so far as the writer has been able to determine, a 
continuous fracture from Tennessee to thirty miles beyond 
New River. How much farther it extends, the writer has not 
yet ascertained. It is of especial interest in that its course 
exhibits total indifference to that of the anticlinals and to the 
strike of the rocks. It shows no material variation in the ex- 
tent of its throw. 
The fault of Walker Mountain enters Washington County 
from Tennessee as a throw in the Knox beds, but soon after 
entering Smyth County the throw becomes stronger and before 
entering Wythe County, Umbral shales are shown on the down- 
throw side. Thence to twenty miles beyond New River the 
fault remains the same. How much farther it extends was not 
ascertained, but like the Saltville it gives promise of many 
miles. One of these two is, no doubt, the “great fault ” so 
often spoken of as following the northerly or northwesterly 
side of the valley. 
The Draper Mountain fault is a short fracture in Wythe and 
Pulaski Counties, which brings up the Potsdam as a rugged 
mountain in the heart of the valley. ‘Two cross-faults pass 
from it, the Max Meadows in a westward direction and the 
Pulaski in a northwestward direction, toward the Walker 
