Mar., 1910.] 
Pennsylvanian Limestones. 
109 
feet per mile and this is just what would be observed in traversing 
the slopes of anticlines in this way. Furthermore, an oil field 
is located 4 to 8 miles southeast of Alliance which strongly indi- 
cates the presence of an anticline. Other evidence of a fold to 
the east of Alliance will occur later. 
SOUTHWESTERN MAHONING COUNTY. 
Bests Station. This point is 4^ miles northeast of Alliance 
on the Lake Erie, Alliance and Wheeling Railroad, and, with the 
next two places to be mentioned, in line with Alliance and 
Howenstein. These three places — Bests Station, North Benton, 
and Little Mill Creek, furnish exposures that must be combined 
in a single section in order to be rightly understood and without 
resort to elevation it would be almost impossible to rightly inter- 
pret the several outcrops. 
A fourth of a mile east of the station and near the right hand 
side of the roadway a limestone occurs which was formerly burned 
for lime. It is not now exposed to its base, but is about 3 feet in 
thickness, apparently in one massive layer, tough, and rather 
dark gray or almost black in color. It lies at 1101 feet above sea 
and is the Vanport limestone as will appear later. 
About 150 yards northwest on the opposite side of the road 
and on the Cornelius Smith farm the upper part of the Putnam 
Hill is seen in an excavation for a spring. It lies at 1084 above 
sea and is a light bluish gray in color, much lighter than the Van- 
port. Only 1 foot of it is exposed and its thickness unknown. 
North Benton. This village lies 2 miles northeast of Bests 
and the hill above the town reaches an elevation of 1127 which is 
sufficiently high to carry both of the above limestones but 50 
feet of the hill top is sandstone. A well at Mr. Hammond’s barn 
just across the roadway from the brick church penetrates a lime- 
stone which may be seen outcropping in the roadway east of the 
barn and near the northwest corner of the cemetery. It lies at 
1069 and is the Howenstein limestone. Its thickness is not seen 
at this point but is probably 2 to 3 feet. Mr. Hammond reports 
4 to 5 feet of black shale on top of the limestone. Sandstone 
clearly succeeds the shale as may be readily seen in the roadway 
above the church. 
Near the northeast corner of the cemetery and 29 feet below 
the top of the limestone the base of a bed of fireclay occurs. This 
fireclay marks the horizon of the Upper Mercer limestone but 
neither the thickness of the fireclay nor what overlies it is exposed 
here. Two hundred yards or more down steam loose blocks of 
limestone are seen and are thought to be from this horizon. 
Nearly a half mile northeast of the cemetery on the O. F. Henry 
farm this limestone is exposed at 1048 above sea at its highest 
point. It undulates sharply dipping 44 feet in 50 yards. It 
