MINERALOGY, 55 



ANTHRACITE. 



No indications of bituminous coal have been found in 

 Maulmain Province, but there is reason to believe that 

 anthraci:3 exists under the town of Maulmain itself. In 

 digging a well on one of the Baptist Mission compounds, 

 beneath several alternating beds of sandstone and slate, 

 or shale, more than twenty feet below the surface, beds of 

 carbonaceous matter were reached. One thin bed contain- 

 ed Tremenheerite, which, from Mr. Piddington's analysis 

 is nearly allied to anthracite. 



Another thin stratum consisted principally of sand and 

 carbonaceous matter, and similar beds are said to accom- 

 pany the anthracite of America. Below this, is a stratum 

 of shale and carbon containing fossil plants. One was 

 decidedly an impression of a part of a leaf belonging to 

 the palm tribe ; and others unquestionably fern leaves 

 such as indicate the anthracite coal formation in Ameri- 

 ca, One of the ferns, and apparently the most numerous 

 one, cannot be distinguished from specimens of Ncuropte- 

 ris Scheuchzeri from the anthracite coal mines of Rhode 

 Island, and Massachussetts in my possession ; and others 

 bare a strong resemblance to Neuropteris and Odontopteris 

 of the American anthracite coal fields that have been fi- 

 gured, but not described. 



These are the only impressions of ferns that have ever 

 been discovered in the Provinces ; but from the bottom 

 of a well deepened last dry season on the margin of the 

 north west corner of Mr. Paterson's compound, an abun- 

 dance of Tremenheerite was brought up, and it is very pro- 

 bable that the fossiliferous strata are below it ; though 

 not the same' as those on my compound, the inclination of 

 the strata showing that they are above them. 



I have also noticed indications of Tremenheerite in the 

 old piles of rocks brought up from a well within Mr. Pat- 

 erson's grounds at the same corner ; and from Mr. 

 Hough's description it would seem that he came to simi- 

 lar strata at the bottom of his well. 



