388 The Amenca?i Geologist. June, i899 
nearly the cost of work already done in Massachusetts. Connecticut, 
and New York. 
Part II (pages 27-53, a"d an appendix in pages 379-392) gives lists 
of elevations, with distances, along all the principal railroads of the 
state, as furnished by officers of the railroad companies, and along 
the Monongaliela and Kanawha rivers from levelling by United States 
engineers. 
Part III (pages 54-122), contributed by Air. Richard U. Goode, 
of the U. S. Geological Survey, discusses the magnetic declination in 
West Virginia, with a table noting its amount at the county seat of each 
of the fifty-five counties of the state, and description of meridian 
monuments which have been placed at these county seats. 
The fourth and final part (in pages 123-378), occupying two-thirds of 
the volume, is by the' state geologist, giving first a historical sketch of 
the discovery and development of petroleum and natural gas in West 
Virginia; and, second, detailed consideration of their geology, with 
description of the rock strata, from near the top of the Permo-Car- 
boniferous series down to the Corniferous limestone, near the base 
of the Devonian, which have been penetrated in drilling. Many rec- 
ords of the sections of individual oil wells are also presented. 
Statistics of the petroleum production of West Virginia range from 
about 90,000 to 180,000 barrels yearly from 18/6 to 1888: and they give 
an aggregate during the forty years from 1859 to 1898, inclusive, of 
73.892.554 barrels. This is only about an eighth as much as Pennsyl- 
vania has produced during the same time; but the annual yield of 
West Virginia is now rapidly approaching equality with Pennsylvania, 
their respective amounts in the year 1898 being 13,603,135 and 15,232,702 
barrels. 
Of the wealth of the State in natural gas. Prof. White writes: 
"Along with this wonderful recent grow'th of the petroleum industry 
in West Virginia there has been a corresponding increase in the pro- 
duction of natural gas, so that this State now stands first of all the 
States of the Union in the production of this matchless fuel, and with 
proper care in husbanding this source of power and the prevention 
of needless waste it should last for another generation at least. Nearly 
all the principal towns of the State west of the Alleghanies are now 
>upplied, or about to be supplied with this fuel, while the Pittsburg re- 
gion receives many million feet daily through the great 16-inch line of 
the Philadelphia Company The hundreds of drilling wells, 
and thousands of pumping oil wells, and all of the pipe lines for 
hauling the oil produced within the State, the water supply, and every- 
thing connected with the oil industry, receive practically all their power 
from the consumption of natural gas, and the quantity thus burned in 
useful work must run into many millions of cubic feet daily, probably 
not less than two hundred millions, while the amount wasting into the 
air from oil wells and safety pressure valves of the pipe lines is prob- 
ably as much more." 
The map of West Virginia, issued with this volume, was compiled 
