k 



Carboniferoua Series. 96 



rous fauna of Russia contains numerous forms identical with 

 those in the same class of rocks in the British Isles. 



A glance at the geological map which accompanies Mr 

 LyelFs " Travels," shews the enormous development of the 

 coal series in the territory of the United States, and that it 

 occupies no inconsiderable space in Nova Scotia and New 

 Brunswick. We learn from the report of Mr Logan, on the 

 Geology of Canada, which I shall presently refer to, that a 

 great coal-field covers nearly the whole of New Brunswick, 

 A considerable part of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, and 

 the south-west corner of Newfoundland. The greater part 

 of the carboniferous series in North America belongs to the 

 upper portion, and not only abounds with numerous and thick 

 beds of coal, but, on the western side of the Alleghanies 

 especially, they are so little disturbed, and lie so nearly 

 horizontal, that the coal is quite easy of access ; and where 

 the strata are intersected by rivers, it can be obtained with 

 little trouble or expense. The great coalfield of Pennsylvania, 

 Virginia, and Ohio, extends continuously from north-east to 

 south-west for a distance of 720 miles, its breadth being in 

 some places 180 miles.* That extending over parts of Illi- 

 nois, Indiana, and Kentucky, is not much inferior in dimen- 

 sions to the whole of England, and consists of horizontal 

 strata, with numerous rich seams of bituminous coal. An- 

 other carboniferous deposit, 170 miles by 100, lies farther to 

 the north, between Lakes Michigan and Huron. I may give 



* On the 17th of March I received a letter from Mr Lyell, dated the 16th 

 of February, at Tuscaloosa in Alabama, containing a notice on the Alabama 

 coal-field, and which was read at the Geological Society on the 25th of March. 

 He states that he had been examining three coal-fields, the existence of which 

 was unknown to him when he compiled his Map in 1844. They occur near 

 Tuscaloosa, in the centre of Alabama, more than 100 miles farther south in a 

 direct line than the southern limit which he had assigned to the Appalachian 

 ooal-field, and are situated on the Tombecbee, Great Warrior, and Cahawba 

 rivers. That on the Great Warrior river has been found by Professor Brumby, 

 of the University of Tuscaloosa, to be no less than ninety miles long from 

 north-east to south-west, with a breadth of from thirty to forty miles. These 

 ooal-fields are portions of the great Appalachian coal-field, with the same 

 mineral and palaeontological characters. Mr Lyell promises a more derailed 

 account of his observations. — April 3. 1846. 



