THE 



MONTHLY AMERICAN JOURNAL 



OF 



GEOLOGY 



AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Vol. I. Philadelphia, April, 1832. No. 10. 



SECTION OF THE ALLEGHANY MOUNTAIN, AND MOSHANNON 

 i VALLEY, IN CENTRE COUNTY, PENN. 



By Richard C. Taylor, F. G. S. and Associate Fellow of the Institution of 



Civil Engineers of London. 



Philipsburg, Centre Co. Penn. March 15, 1832. 

 Dear Sir, — You ask for some information relative to the 

 geology of this neighbourhood, and I lose no time in complying 

 with your request. I believe I cannot do better than furnish 

 you with the accompanying section, which I feel some satisfac- 

 tion in doing, because its details result from a series of careful 

 observations, made during last summer, whilst pursuing an ex- 

 ploring survey, to determine a rail-way route. I have preferred 

 introducing a number of details into the section, rather than 

 transfer them into a lengthened explanatory memoir. Until the 

 investigation of the country bordering on the Alleghany chain 

 be more extensively entered upon, I propose to occupy but a 

 brief space in your Journal, with the requisite explanatory 

 references. 



My section illustrates only a very small portion of the central 

 bituminous coal field of Pennsylvania ; but it occurs in an inter- 

 esting quarter, and it is well to make a beginning, where the 

 area is so vast, and so little known to men of science. The di- 

 rection of our course is north and south, exhibiting profiles of a 

 part of the Moshannon valley, its creek, and some of its tribu- 

 taries ; and then crossing the Alleghany ridge or mountain, at 

 the lowest depression we have been able to ascertain in this di- 

 rection, we descend by Emigh's gap, and by the ravine and run 



Vol. I.— 55 433 



