GEOLOGY. 263 



probably holding a lower position than tlie one at Nebraska City, 

 which is accompanied by several species of coal-plants peculiar to 

 the upper coal-measures. 



At Aspin wall, in Nemaha Co., two seams of coal were met with. 

 At llulo, 15 or 20 miles below Aspinwall, and at Tecumseh, John- 

 son Co., thin seams of coal have been worked. 



Different outcroppings of coal were worked in various portions of 

 the State, because their existence seemed to the people to promise 

 better things. The consequence has been that much more money 

 has been spent in the useless search for coal in Nebraska than the 

 cost of a geological survey for years. 



In aid of the solution of the problem whether there are within 

 the limits of the State of Nebraska any workable beds of coal 

 within accessible distance of the surface, the following conclusions 

 are the result of the examination of these rocks during the past 

 season. It has been accurately determined that rocks of the car- 

 boniferous period occupy only a small portion of South-eastern 

 Nebraska, and that these rocks are of the age of the upper coal- 

 measures, permo-carboniferous and permian. At Omaha, a 

 boring of nearly 400 feet in depth was made without passing any 

 important seam of coal. At Nebraska City a boring was made 

 nearly the same distance with the same result. 



At Atchison and Leavenworth, Kansas, and at St. Joseph, Mo., 

 where the upper coal-measures are several hundred feet lower 

 than at Nebraska City or Omaha, borings were made about 400 

 feet with no better success. 



Mr. Brodhead, a geologist attached to the Missouri State Geo- 

 logical Survey, studied with a great deal of care a series of beds 

 of the upper coal-measures in Northern Missouri, which he re- 

 garded as 2,000 feet in thickness, without finding a seam of coal 

 more than 2 or 2^ feet in thickness. 



The upper coal-measures of the "West are regarded as the bar- 

 ren coal-measures, while all the workable beds of coal are confined 

 to the lower coal-measures. It is plain that all the carboniferous 

 rocks of Nebraska pass beneath the more recent formations west- 

 ward to be disclosed again by the uplifting of the Rocky Mountain 

 rano;es. We find the carboniferous limestone all alono^ the mar- 

 gins of the Rocky Mountains on either side of the axis of elevation. 

 On studying these fossils we find that so many of them are identi- 

 cal with the species found in what we know to be the upper coal- 

 measures along the Missouri, that we do not hesitate to pronounce 

 them as of the same age. Indeed they are simply the western 

 extension of them, thinnins: out and orraduallv losins: all the thin 

 seams of coal and shale and nearly all the beds of clay and loose 

 sands, leaving for the most part massive beds of limestone. 



It seems more than prol)able that coal in paying quantities will 

 never be found within the limits of the State of Nebraska. If this 

 statement is true, it is a very important negative truth not only to 

 Nebraska, but also to very large portions of Iowa, Missouri, and 

 Kansas. We already know that the carboniferous rocks do not exist 

 in Dacotah Territory at all, so that along the Missouri River there 

 is a very large district, of wonderful fertility, almost treeless and 



