Fayette. - Area, 830 square miles; population in 1880, 58,842. The Second,
Third, and Fourth Bituminous coal basins cross the county from N. N.
E. to S. S. W. into West Virginia. TheSecond or Ligonier
Valley Basin lies between the two broad anticlinal mountains of
Laurel Hill (along the Somerset County line) and Chestnut Ridge, rising
1300 feet above the water in the two gaps made through them by the Youghiogheny
River, which crosses the valley diagonally, keeping most of the way
in the red shale (XI), but making the beautiful Ohiopile Falls
where it passes over a narrow synclinal strip of the Conglomerate (XII.)
The basin is lined with the Lower Productive coal measures, supporting
numerous isolated hills of Barren measures, none of which are lofty
enough to preserve the Pittsburgh (Connellsville) coal bed. In the two
gaps may be seen the arched outcrops of Pocono sandstone, forming vertical
cliffs, with steep taluses, covering strata which may be called Catskill
(IX), but contain Chemung fossils (VIII). On the broad summits of the
two mountains remain plates of the Conglomerate, 50` to 70` high, composed
of a friable whitish sandstone, cleft in vast cubical masses, and weather
worn into shallow caves. The "Elk rock" may be easily visited from Connellsville,
and the "Cow rock" on the edge of the precipice looking down into the
gap is covered with Indian sculptures. The Lower Productive coal measures
cover all the west half of the county, and so do the Lower Barren measures,
except along Red Stone Creek at Upper Middleton. The Pittsburgh bed
extends along the middle of the Third or Connellsville Basin
for 33 miles, with a width of 4 miles. This noble bed, sometimes more
than 12 feet thick, is very extensively mined, and its coal coked for
Pittsburgh and the western and south-western cities. It carries the
Upper Productive coal measures, consisting of four principal coal beds
and many massive limestone strata. At two or three points of this basin
small hill tops have preserved some of the Upper Barren measures. The
fourth or Monongahela Valley Basin occupies all the western
townships, with a multitude of collieries on the Pittsburgh bed facing
the river pools. The Upper Barren measures make a considerable show
on the map in Jefferson, Redstone, Luzerne, and German townships in
the middle of this basin; but the Greene County series has not been
preserved; and the Washington County series is not well exposed to observation,
the uplands being well cultivated and the vales shallow; but the Upper
and Middle limestones, the Jollytown coal, the Washington coal (5`),
its iron ore, and the Waynesburg "A" coal have all been identified.
Below these spread 437` of Upper Productive coal measures, containing
the Waynesburg coal (6`), Little Waynesburg coal (2`), Waynesburg limestone
(20`), Uniontown coal (3`), Uniontown limestone (12`), Great limestone
(80`), Sewickley coal (3`), Fishpot limestone (25`), Redstone coal (4`),
Redstone limestone (10`), and at the base the Pittsburgh coal (12`),
i.e., 40` of coal and 147` of limestone, with three marked sandstones
30`, 30`, and 40` respectively. The Lower Barren measures measure
only 492`. The Lower Productive coal measures are underground;
but where they come up with dips of 10º to 30º on the flank of the Chestnut
Ridge they show at least five coal beds, the top and bottom ones varying
greatly in thickness between 1` or 2` and 9` or 10`. In the immediate
presence of the outcrop of the Pittsburgh bed these lower coal beds
stand no chance of being worked, and are there for scarcely better understood
in 1885 than they were when examined by Dr. Jackson in 1840. Important
beds of iron ore lie at five different horizons in Fayette County, and
have been a good deal mined for the use of local blast furnaces at Dunbar,
&c.: (1) Five beds of lump and flag clay-iron-stone, within 25`
feet under the Pittsburgh coal; (2) two overlying the Mahoning sandstone
near Lemont furnace; (3) the local Norris, Jacob’s Creek, or Pridevale
beds under the Mahoning sandstone; (4) the Stratford ore on top of the
Conglomerate; and, (5), most important of all, the Honey-comb, Kidney,
and red ores of No. XI, in the ravines of Chestnut Ridge. (See Report
K2 , chapter 10.)
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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