374 The American Geolorjist. Dccembor. 189(> 
Fairmont and Palatine at the junction of tiie Tygart's val- 
ley and West Fork rivers, 26 miles above Morgantown. are 
situated on the wide plain excavated by the pre-glacial river, 
and as might be expected, the old rock floor is covered to a 
great depth with terrace deposits, consisting of sand, rounded 
boulders, etc., from the Tygart's valley, and pottery clays from 
the West Fork river. Tlie elevation of the old rock-floor is 
972.5 feet A. T., or 122 feet above tlie present river, wliile the 
top of these deposits extends up to 1,067 feet A. T. 
The terrace material at Fairmont has been well exposed 
along Fairmont avenue, and its stratifled condition is well 
shown. At the Smith & McKinney building the excavation 
showed the different stratified layers of sand and clay dip- 
ping about 10*^ to the west. 
A layer of clay, about eight feet thick, at near 1,000 feet 
A. T., has long been rained for pottery clay, in the Fairmont 
region. The corresponding bed at Morgantown has an eleva- 
tion of 9-t5 feet A. T. 
At Clarksburg, thirty miles above Fairmont, the West Fork 
river is joined by a large tributary, Elk creek, and the two 
streams had carved out a wide vallej'^ in pre-glacial time, 
whose rock-floor under the city has an elevation of 986 feet 
A. T.. or about 70 feet above low water (916 feet A. T.) at 
the junction of Elk and the West Fork rivers. Here a great 
deposit of clays and quick-sand, twenty-five feet thick, covers 
all the level surfaces up to 1,020 feet A. T. There are some 
layers of rather coarse sand in the deposits, but the clays 
predominate, and they are found all along the West Fork 
river, and its tributaries from Fairmont to Clarksburg and on 
beyond to Weston, thirty miles south, where they extend to 
only about thirty feet (1,020 feet A. T.) above water level 
(990 feet A. T.). 
At Grafton, on the Tygart's valley river, twenty-tw^o miles 
above Fairmont, the elevation of the top of the railroad pier 
in the river is 997 feet and the terrace deposits extend only 
about twenty-five feet higher. 
The principal town sites along the Monongahela river from 
Weston to Pittsburg, viz : Weston, Clarksburg, Grafton, Mo- 
nongah, Fairmont, Palatine, Montana, Morgantown, Point 
Marion, Geneva, Greensboro, Rice's Landing, Fredericktown, 
