Description of the Geology of
Bedford County
Pennsylvania

 
Bedford.- Area, 1000 square miles; population in 1880, 34,929. It is divided into three parallel belts of almost exactly equal width. 10 miles each, by two long straight mountains of Medina No. IV. Nearly the whole palaeozoic system is represented, viz: 1200 feet of coal measures, 250' of Pottsville Conglomerate XII, 1100' of Mauch Chunk red shale XI, 1400' of Pocono sandstone X, 3000' of Catskill old red IX on Yellow creek (2000' on Wills creek), 3600' of Chemung and Portage, 200' of Genessee, 800' of Hamilton, 800' of Marcellus (total for VIII, 5400' ), 200' of Oriskany VII, 1250' of Lower Helderberg VI, 275' of Salina and Niagara, 900' of Clinton (total for V, 1175' ), 1600' of Medina and Oneida (very thin) IV, 700' of Hudson river and Utica III, and 4520' of Trenton, Chazy, and Calciferous (visible) in Snake Spring township; making a total of 3950' Carboniferous, 8600' Devonian, and 9520' Silurian rocks = 22,070 feet in total thickness from the highest stratum on Broad Top to the lowest rock visible on the Juniata river before Bedford. The higher rocks of the series crop out along the two opposite county lines in Ray's hill on the east and the Allegheny mountain on the west, both crests running evenly along at about 2000 feet above tide. Towards these two sides, the lower formations dip both ways from the central belt, which is one grand anticlinal wave, with numerous folds in its back. Consequently the eastern and western belts are broad zones of Devonian hills, very much broken up by cross valleys and ravines descending from the crest of the Allegheny mountain. Along the west flank of Wells mountain and Dunning's mountain, and along the east flank of Tussey mountain, the whole length of the county, run two outcrops of the Clinton (V) fossil iron-ore beds, mined at many points. Close to each belt of iron ore runs a ridge of Oriskany sandstone and Lower Helderberg limestone, a broad central strip of which turns in to the central belt north of Bedford Springs and stretches thence south into Maryland. The great limestone foundation No. II with its border mountain of Medina IV, terraced by the slates of III, makes the floor of the three "coves" - Morrison's, Friends' and Milliken's - renowned for their fertility. A large part of the Broad Top coal field lies in the north-east corner of the county, and several considerable collieries work the Lower Productive coal beds of Six Mile and Sandy runs for export to the seaboard. The coal of the Kelly bed shows 74 per cent of solid carbon, 19 per cent of gas, 5.5 of ash, 1 of sulphur and almost no water; is highly esteemed for steam engines and puddling furnaces; and its coke is successfully used in the Hopewell and Riddlesburg blast furnaces, which are stocked from the fossil ore mines in West Providence, Bedford and Hopewell townships, mixed occasionally with brown-hematite ores obtained from the outcrops of the Marcellus, the Lower Helderburg and the Calciferous formations. No permanent and copious supply of iron ore can be obtained in the county from any of the formations except the Clinton, although they all contain it. No coal beds are available on the crest of the Allegheny mountain; and the way the west county line has been run across from it to the northern end of Savage mountain excludes the Cumberland coal field of Somerset and Maryland from Bedford county. Bedford Springs has been a great resort for many years. (See Report T².)

From: A geological hand atlas of the sixty-seven counties of Pennsylvania :embodying the results of the field work of the survey, from 1874 to 1884. By J. P. Lesley. (Report of progress (Geological Survey of Pennsylvania), v. X ) Harrisburg, PA : Board of commissioners for the second geological survey, 1885.

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