“ The soils are all formed from local disintegration of the rocks. In the northeast they are sandy and of little fertility, but many of the mountains are covered to their summits with a fertile clayey soil, and the Ohio Valley in the west has a soil formed chiefly from limestone, which gives it great fertility. West Virginia is one of the most typical sections of the Appalachian floral region. ”

“ The general shape is that of an oval, 210 miles long from southwest to northeast and 125 miles wide, but two narrow tongues extend northward between Pennsylvania and Ohio and northeastward between Virginia and Maryland, each of them being known as ‘panhandles.’ The area of the State is 24,780 square miles, making it thirty-seventh in size among the States.
Topography. The surface of West Virginia is, as a whole, uneven, and in the east mountainous. The main range of the Alleghanies crosses the northeastern section, and farther south forms the State boundary toward Virginia. ”

“ The acts of the convention must be submitted to the people for ratification. A proposed amendment must receive the approval of two-thirds of the members elected to each House, after which it is submitted to the people and decided by a majority of those voting. ”

“ The development of coal-mining has been closely related with the improvement of transportation facilities, and especially with the improvements on the Great Kanawha River. West Virginia coal has a high value for coking purposes. (See Manufactures, below.) The rapid increase in the production of petroleum did not begin until after 1890. The yield was then only 492,578 barrels. In 1900 it surpassed the output of Pennsylvania, and ranked second only to that of Ohio. ”

“ Mining. West Virginia rivals western Pennsylvania as a mining region. Its large mineral wealth consists mainly of the mineral fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Coal-mining has developed chiefly since 1880, since which year the production has steadily increased. The average annual gain for that period was over 1,000,000 tons. The output in 1901 amounted to 24,068,402 short tons, valued at $20,848,184. Coal underlies a large part of the State and was mined in 1901 in 21 counties. ”

“ In spite of the King's proclamation of 1763 declaring the western territory to be ‘Indian country,’ colonization was rapid and counties were formed. After the Revolution an entirely different society grew up in the western woods, compared with that in the east. ”

“ The rocks are here mainly Devonian, with several broad bands of Silurian in the northeast extending as far as the Cambrian sandstone on the slope of the Blue Ridge at the extreme northeastern limit of the State. West Virginia includes 16,000 square miles of the Alleghany coal measures. The upper and lower coal measures, separated by 250 feet of barren shales and sandstone, each contain several beds of coal from 1 to 9 feet thick. The coal is chiefly bituminous, though in some places it is partly metamorphosed. ”

“ During the war an unusually large part of the population was in arms, and 32,068 men were furnished to the Federal Army. Slavery was entirely abolished February 3, 1865, in advance of the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment. The return of the Confederate soldiers to the southern and eastern counties threatened the Republican control, and in 1866 an amendment was added to the Constitution disfranchising all who had given aid and comfort to the Confederacy after June, 1861. ”

“ Stock-raising holds a prominent place and the industry has made enormous gains since 1870. The most marked development has been in cattle-raising. Much progress is being made in dairying. In 1899 there was 41 per cent. ”

“ The principal centre of production is Wetzel County. The largest part of the product is piped into the neighboring manufacturing districts of Pennsylvania. Clays are utilized and some stone is quarried.
Agriculture. In 1900 10,654,513 acres, or 67.5 per cent. of the State's area, were included in farms. The area of improved land (5,498,981 acres) is more than twice that of the corresponding area in 1870. The average size of farms has decreased nearly one-half since 1870, being 114.7 acres in 1900. In the latter year 78.2 per cent. of the farms were worked by their owners. ”