USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 37
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Some lands are more affected by drought than others, when both receive the same rainfall. This may be due to the character of the underlying rocks, although usually due to a different cause. If the soil is shallow, and the subjacent rocks lie oblique and on edge, they are liable to carry the water away rapidly by receiving it into their openings and crevices, thus draining the soil. But if the stibjacent rocks lie horizontally, water which sinks through the soil is prevented from escaping, and is held as in a tub, and is fed gradually upward through the soil by capilliary attraction. This land will remain moist a long time. But the more usual reason that one soil dries more rapidly than another, is that one is loose and the other compact. The
compact soil dries first. The smaller the interspaces between the ultimate particles which make up the soil, the more rapidly water rises from the wet subsoil by capilliary attraction, and the supply is soon exhausted. The more compact the soil, the smaller the spaces between the par- ticles. In loose ground the interspaces are larger, the water rises slowly or not at all, and the dampness remains longer beneath the surface. In the western countries where the summers are hot and rainless, the farmers irri- gate their land, thoroughly soaking it from a neighboring canal. If they shut the water off and leave the land alone,
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in a few days it is baked, parched, hard and as dry as a bone. But the farmer does not do this. As soon as the water is turned off, he plows and harrows the land, making the surface as loose as possible. The result is, the im- mediate top becomes dry, but a few inches below the sur- face the soil remains moist for weeks. The water cannot escape through the porous surface. The same rule applies everywhere. If two cornfields lie side by side, especially in a dry season, and one is carefully tilled and the surface kept loose. while the other is not, the differ- ence in the crops will show that in one case the moisture in the soil was prevented from escaping and was fed to the corn roots, while in the other case it rose to the surface and was blown away by the wind, leaving the corn to die of thirst.
The Romney Shale .- A peculiar rock formation takes its name from Romney, because it reaches its typical development in the vicinity of that town. In the United States Geological survey it is called "Romney Shale." It rests upon the Monterey sandstone (which is seen in Hanging Rocks below Romney), and is next to the lowest formation in the Devonian age in this part of the state. The Romney shale extends through Maryland into Penn- sylvania, and in the other direction is found as far as Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties, and is abundant in some portions of Grant county. It probably extends west- ward beyond the Alleghanies, but is there buried beneath vast beds of more recent rock and has not been seen. The thickness of this shale in Maryland, north of Hamp- shire, is about seven hundred feet. In Grant county the thickness is about thirteen hundred feet, and in Hamp- shire it is between these extremes. A description of this remakable and almost worthless rock will prove of inter- est to the people of this county, who are already more or less familiar with it. It is popularly called slate, but it is not slate. It bears the same relation to slate that dried
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clay bears to a burnt brick. Shale is indurated and partly pressed mud. Slate is burnt and completely pressed shale. If the beds of shale, as we now have them, were heated (from the internal heat of the earth), and, while in a semi-fused condition, were submitted to an enormous pressure and allowed slowly to cool, they would be slate, or schist.
Romney shale is found along the South branch valley, in the valleys of Patterson creek and New creek, in Min- eral county, and along the flanks, near the bases, of the neighboring hills and mountains. It is usually black, but sometimes lighter colored, and in places is almost terra cotta. Near the base of the formation the color is darker. The lighter colors are near the top. It breaks and splits easily; and the typical mode of fracture is in long and slender pieces like slate pencils. In Romney it is used for sidewalks, and when newly made these sidewalks have the appearance of masses of broken slate pencils. The rock is easily pulverized, and is quickly ground to a pow- der so fine that the wind blows it away and the rain washes it off. It has been used in macadamizing roads, but it soon wears out, a covering a foot deep disappearing in a few years. However, when a road passes through a shale formatian and the roadbed is cut from the solid rock, it makes an excellent highway, never becoming troublesome on account of mud or dust. The most solid roads in Hampshire are those which pass over strata of shale. The finest exposure of this formation in Hampshire county is at the river bluff, half mile, or less, from Romney, in a northwestern direction. There a perpendicular cliff, in places more than one hundred and fifty feet high, may be seen. The fissile nature of the rocks can be studied to advantage. The face of the precipice is shattered in mul- tiplied millions of fragments, in size ranging from a few pounds to pieces like the smallest needle.
The manner in which these beds of shale were formed,
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ages ago, is clearly indicated. A former chapter in this book describes the method of rock building, such as we had in this part of West Virginia. It was there pointed out that all the rocks were formed in the bottom of the sea; the sandstone was made of sand; limestone of shells that settled to the bottom, and shale was made of mud. The chief difference between sandstone and shale is, that the former is made of coarser material-sandstone is con- solidated sandbars; shale is hardened mud flats. The Romney shale gives us a glimpse of conditions in this part of the world millions of years ago. The sea was then shallow over an area covering several counties, with Hamp- shire in the center. The land toward the east, from which the mud was washed by rivers, was low, and the rivers were stagnant or sluggish. Had their currents been rapid they would have carried sand into the sea, and we would have had sandstone instead of shale. The shores were swampy and low. In fact, the whole area under consider- ation was probably a vast, dismal swamp, with lagoons, swales, channels, currents and counter currents, caused by the ebbing and flowing of the tides. The mud accumu- lated in these semi-submerged swamps to a depth of a thousand feet or more, and then an elevation of the neigh- boring land gave currents to the rivers, and sand came pouring in and covered the mud to a depth of more than two thousand feet. This sand now exists as sandstone and overlies the shale in every part of Hampshire where it has not been stripped off by erosion. The deep beds of mud thus buried were pressed and hardened and became shale.
Vegetation was somewhat abundant at that time, as is shown by the carbon in the shale, giving it its black color. In places the rock resembles coal, and persons not ac- quinted with the geology of the section have attempted to open coal mines in this shale. Of course they never found any coal, except perhaps a thin and stony vein occasionally;
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for coal, in paying quantities, does not exist in formations as old as the Romney shale. Had vegetation been as abund- ant at the beginning of the Devonian as in the middle of the Carboniferous age, it is probable that the area of the Rom- ney shale would have been a field of enormous coal beds. But the vegetation was lacking, and mud flats took the place of peat bogs, and we now have shale instead of coal.
There is no clearly defined line in Hampshire county between the shale and the overlying formation-called the Jennings. The sandstone of the latter lies upon the shale, and occasionally a layer sandstone is included in the shale, or a bed of shale is found among the strata of sandstone. This shows that the change from the mud flats to the sand- bars-from the swampy shores to the elevated coast line bordering the ancient sea-was gradual.
There is another paragraph in the history of the rocks which may be read by following the Piney mountain road about a mile from where it leaves the Northwestern pike. Halfway up Town hill, after passing over various grades of sandstone, a ledge of coarse conglomerate is met with. It rests upon and lies beneath finer-grained sandstone. The conglomerate is made up of rounded, water-worn, white quartz pebbles, cemented in a strong mass. The most careless observer will notice the difference between this and the neighboring rocks. Conglomerate is found in all countries of the world, and is not confined to any age of rocks. All have the same general history. They are formed of pebbles worn round in the beds of swift rivers or by the churning of waves on stormy coasts. That ledge on Town hill has its story to tell. The pebbles of which it is composed were probably worn and polished in the headwaters of the rivers which brought the mud to sea to form the Romney shale. But these rivers became slug- gish when they reached the low-coasted plain, and could not carry the pebbles to sea, and they there lodged for ages, while the upper portion of the Romney shale and the
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superincumbent sandstones were being deposited. Then a change in the elevation of the land increased the strength of the river currents, and the gravel was carried to sea and was cemented into rock as we now see it. Some of the pebbles are an inch in diameter. They are white quartz and originally were derived from veins of that beautiful rock which were formed in early ages of the earth's history. These white pebbles are remnants of mountains long ag:) ground down and which were scattered and spread over the bottoms of ancient oceans to form rocks for newer con- tinents. The mountains from which the material was de- rived are believed to have stood east of the present Blue Ridge. Immense areas of very hard rock, supposed to be the remnants and foundations of ancient mountains, are still to be seen in that region.
There is another important series of rocks named from its abundance in this county. It is called the "Hampshire Formation." It lies above the Romney shale and is separ- ated from it by the Jennings Formation more than two thousand feet thick.
Mill Creek Mountain .- The student of Hampshire county's geography and geology will be well repaid by careful study of Mill creek mountain and its relations to the South branch of the Potomac. In this chapter Mill creek mountain is understood to include that range which begins in Hardy county north of Old Fields, and extends parallel with the South branch, sometimes on one side of it and sometimes on the other, to the North branch, at the Maryland line, between Green Spring station and South Branch station. Different portions of the mountain have different names in the several localities, but the govern- ment charts, made in 1891, from the surveys of 1983, 188+ and 1885, give the general name, Mill creek mountain, to the range. The casual observer might suppose that the range is properly divided into several mountains. That which gives it the appearance of district mountains is the
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fact that it has been cut through again and again from side to side, and in one instance cut down from summit to base lengthwise for seven miles-split open as it were-by the South branch. It therefore becomes a profitable subject for study. Instances are rare in this state, and rare in any part of the world, in which the relative ages of a moun- tain and a river can be so clearly seen, and for which the proof is so manifest. The proof is conclusive that the South branch was flowing along nearly its present course before Mill creek mountain had an existence.
The method by which rivers cut through mountains has been discussed somewhat at length in a former chapter of this book. The discussion will not be repeated here. It was formerly held by geologists that where a river has cut a gap through a mountain it first was stopped in its course by the sudden upheaval of the mountain across its channel, and formed a lake by the backwater which rose higher and higher until it found an outlet through the lowest gap in the obstruction, and then burst through with tremendous force, tearing the rocks out and cutting a passage through the mountain to its base, and draining the lake in a short time, perhaps in so short a time that the whole work par- took of the nature of an explosion, bursting through the rocks and hurling them before the rushing waters from the pent-up lake. This view of the case is now known to be erroneous. The process was not one of violence. There were no lakes, except in rare cases. Had it been possible for a man to have lived so long, and had he stood at Hang- ing Rocks below Romney and watched the whole operation of the river cutting its channel through the mountain at that place, lie probably would never have witnessed any- more violence than can be seen at present. The work is perhaps going on today in the same manner as in past ages. The river was flowing before there was a mountain across its path. The mountain was formed by the upheaval of rocks from below the surface. Vast beds of limestone,
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sandstone and shale, which once lay flat, were folded by stupendous pressure, and the folded part rose above the surface as a vast arch. This arch, is it now exists, forms the mountain. It can thus be understood how the gaps were cut through it by the river. The mountain rose out of the earth so slowly that as it appeared above the general surface of the country and across the channel of the river, the stream kept its old channel, cutting and wearing the rocks away as they rose higher and higher.
The most northern gap through this mountain, in Hamp- shire county, is that made by the North branch, between Greenspring and South branch station. The main line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad passes through it, along the bank of the North branch. It will be presently shown that, had this mountain been older than the river the mouth of the South branch would be at Greenspring instead of where it is. If the mountain had been there first, the only method by which the river could have gotten through it would have been by backing up, forming a lake, until the water poured over the top of the mountain. Take the case of the lower Hanging Rocks, where the wire bridge use to be, and see what the result would have been. had the South branch attempted to back up before the gap existed, forming a lake till it overflowed the mountain where the gap now is. The general height of the mountain in that vicinity is now from eleven hundred to fourteen hundred feet above sea level. The bed of the South branch at that point is now about seven hundred feet above sea level-a few feet less, perhaps. Thus, the river would impound its waters and form a lake four hundred feet deep before finding escape over the mountain to commence cutting the gap. But, before the waters had risen in that lake to a depth of two hundred and fifty feet it would have flowed through the low gap at the head of Greenspring run and would have emptied itself down the present valley of Green- spring into the North branch, and it would not have cut 35
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the gap at the wire bridge at all. This is conclusive proof that the gap was cut slowly, as the mountain rose out of the earth.
If further proof is wanted, take the case of the upper Hanging Rocks, four miles below Romney, and the same argument will lead to a similar conclusion. The South brauch, for fifteen miles above Hanging Rocks, flows along the eastern base of Mill creek mountain, and at Hanging Rocks breaks through to the west side. If the mountain had been there first it would have been necessary that a lake form from the pent-up water till it overflowed the mountain at that place. The mountain is twelve hundred feet above sea level, or five hundred above the bed of the river. A lake must have formed five hundred feet deep to overflow the mountain toward the west. But, before the water had risen three hundred feet it would have passed out through the low gap, on the east side of the mountain, between the upper and lower Hanging Rocks. That gap is less than eight hundred feet above sea level, and the river would have made its channel there and would not have cut through the mountain, which is more than two hundred feet higher. Water always flows through the lowest gaps. This proof is conclusive that, had the South branch, when it first started on its course to the sea, found Mill creek mountain across its path at upper Hanging Rock, it would have continued down the east side of the mountain, and the gaps at both the upper and lower rocks would not have been made.
Mill creek gap, or Mechanicsburg gap, is another case to the point. This passage through the mountain was not made by the South branch, but by Mill creek, just before it empties into the river. Mill creek is a comparatively small stream, and the amount of labor it has performed, in sawing a passage for its water through that lofty moun- tain, is almost incredible. A river like the South branch may be expected to do great things; but so much work
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seems out of the question with so small a stream as Mill creek. Yet, by working steadily through countless ages it has sawed a gap through the mountain from top to bot- tom. This stream is also older than the mountain. Its entire course, except the lower two miles, lies west of that range. It drains a basin of about sixty square miles, and empties through a pass cut to a depth of not less than twelve hundred feet. It is a much deeper gap than any of the three made by the South branch and the North branch below that place. The mountain on both sides of the pass is nearly two thousand feet above sea level, and the bottom of the pass is less than eight hundred, showing a perpen- dicular cut of twelve hundred feet. Had it been necessary for Mill creek to form a lake until it overflowed the moun- tain, before the cutting process began, the lake would have been more than a thousand feet deep. If no water had been permitted to escape, except by evaporation, the rain and snow of a thousand years would not have sufficed to accumulate water to that height. It would have been im- possible for a lake to form at that place to a depth of a thousand feet; because before it had reached one-third of that depth it would have found two passages for escape, one through the low gap above Pargatsville into the South branch near Old Fields, and the other through the low gap toward the north, at the head of Dumpling run, a small stream which empties into the South branch about five miles below Romney, near the residence of Franklin Her- riott. The divide between Dumpling run and the water of Mill creek is only nine hundred and seventy feet above the sea, and the divide between the water of Mill creek and Mud lick, near the Hardy county line, is eleven hundred feet above sea level. The mountain through which Mill creek made its outlet is two thousand feet; so it can be seen that the water, if sufficiently accumulated, would have passed through either gap long before it would have over- flowed the mountain. Where rivers once fix their courses,
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there they usually keep them, not suffering themselves to be turned aside by mountains thrust across their paths.
The cases already cited are those in which streams have cut across mountains, making a way through from one side to the other: Mill creek gap, the passes at the upper and the lower Hanging Rocks, and that between Green spring and South branch station. A remarkable and peculiar case of mountain cutting remains to be described. It is the Trough. There the river did not cut across the mountain, from one side to the other, but made a passage through it from end to end. It may be compared to a cir- cular saw, cutting a log lengthwise. The narrow, trough- like gap made by the river is, about seven miles long, partly in Hardy county and partly in Hampshire. The process by which the passage was made, was without doubt similar to that already described in the excavation of the other passes through the same range. The river was flowing. upon its course before there was a mountain. When the folding rocks began to rise from the earth, the axis, or anticline, of the fold was directly beneath, and parallel with the river which began the work by cutting a trough along the backbone of the embryonic mountain. As the elevation of the range became greater, the river cut deeper, until at the present day the gorge is hundreds of feet deep, and the South branch flows in a narrow channel at the bottom, with nearly perpendicular walls of rock on either side.
It seems almost superfluous to examine again for proof that if the mountain had been their first, the river would have sought and found a channel very different from the one it now follows. It is out of the question that a stream would flow over a mountain, along its summit lengthwise when it could have found an outlet hundreds of feet lower on either side. Had the South branch, when it first started out upon its course, found itself confronted by the end of Mill creek mountain, below Old Fields, it would have
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formed a lake, until the empounded waters escaped through the lowest gap. That gap would probably have been found near Pargatsville, although the gap on the east side of the river, through which the road from Romney to Moorefield passes, is on nearly the same level. Both gaps are about eleven hundred feet above the sea, or three hun- dred above the bed of the river at Moorefield. Had a lake been formed there, it would have found drainage down Mill creek before it attained a depth above three hundred feet. The mountain through which the Trough extends was split from end to end. Half the mountain is now east of the river, half west. But the larger half (if an expres- sion so unmathematical may be allowed,) is west of the Trough. At least, it is the higher portion. It rises above the bed of the river to a height of nineteen hundred feet, culminating in High Knob, on the Hampshire-Hardy line. The portion to the east of the river rises nine hundred feet above the bed of the stream. There the two portions of the mountain stand facing each other, with a yawning chasm between them. The appearance is, that some ter- rific convulsion of nature had burst the mountain from end to end, and that the river, finding a channel thus ready made, adopted it. But convulsions of nature, especially in that region, have never burst mountains in such a way. The chasm was made by flowing water, through ages un- numbered; yet, the evidence does not contradict the theory that the work may have been facilitated by the rup- ture of the top of the strata under the immense strain as they were folded and thrust upward.
Without dwelling more at length on this subject, the conclusion may be thus presented: When the South branch first commenced flowing, near the close of the Carbonifer- ous age, if it had found Mill creek mountain in its path at the south end of the Trough, the course of the river would have been very different from what it is now. It would have been as follows: Passing through Old Field+
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it would have made a channel through the low gap near Pargatsville, thence down Mill creek valley, through the gap at the head of Dumpling ran, down that brook, follow- ing the present course of the river from upper to lower Hanging Rocks, thence through the low gap above Spring- field, and down Green spring ran to the North branch of the Potomac. The fact that the river did not take that course is proof that it already had its course before the mountain came into existence, and the mountain could not deflect or obstruct it.
There is no doubt that the whole face of the country has been much worn down since the upheaval of Mill creek mountain, and the topography was different in early times from what it is now. The divides near Pargatsville, at the head of Dampling run, and at the head of Greenspring run, were probably not so low as now; but the mountain was also higher once than it is now, and the logic of the argument is not changed.
The Romney Terrace. The village of Romney stands on a river terrace, the average of which is about one hundred and fifty feet above the South branch. It was known as Pearsall's Flat before the town had an existence probably because a man of that name lived there at a very early time. Pearsall's fort, which was built under the personal supervision of Washington, did not stand on the terrace where Romney stands, but on a smaller and lower terrace one half mile further south, nearly opposite the present bridge across the South branch. These two ter- races demand more than a passing ment.ba when consid- ered from the standpoint of geography and goology. The upper one, where the town stands, is the older of the two; that is, it was made first. They were both cirved by the South brauch. Each was in its tuen a portion of the bed of that river. This may seem unreasonable, if considered in relation with the present land features; but geology takes into account ages almost unnumbered, and in that
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