1877.] "i^^fJ [Lesquereux. 



portions of the coal measures of Ohio ; twice the mines of Cuj'ahoga Fal's ; 

 those along the railroad from Cleveland to the mouth of YeUow creek ; the 

 coal strata under the Flint ridge near Newark ; those of Zanesville. and 

 down the Muskingum river, thus passing over the coal fields in various di- 

 rections. 



I had been before to Nashville to see Professor Troost and his cele- 

 brated cabinet of mineral specimens, which had the.i scarcely anything 

 referable to vegetable paleontology. I found later, however, at Lebanon, 

 in the collections of Prof Jas. M. Safford, State Geologist of Tennessee, a 

 fine lot of remarkably well preserved impressions ot ferns, with some hard 

 fruits, Caiyoliihes, Trigonoearpes, some of them new species. 



These private researches becoming too expensive for my very limited 

 means, and also too little productive in results of importance to my re- 

 searches, I readily accepted the proposition of Dr. D. D. Owen, to join his 

 corps of assistants on the Geological State Survey of Kentucky, and gave to 

 the work two or three months each year. These explorations were of little 

 account, and did not afiiord any valuable discoveries in vegetable paleon- 

 tology. For except the coal beds of the upper stage, worked for the use of 

 steamboats along the Ohio river, and which had no fossil remains of plants, 

 most of those exposed inland were then unopened for want of communica- 

 tions, and thus I had rarely any opportunity to get good specimens. 



The results of the geological reconnaiaance in Arkansas, under the same 

 direction, were far more valuable and interesting. But here, again, it was im- 

 possible to stop at peculiar places for prolonged investigation for fossils. So 

 hurried were the explorations made, with the liecessarj^ incumbrance of a 

 camp, that for the examination of the finest exposition of a coal, that of 

 Males, where there was an abundance of specimens, we had scarcely one 

 hour of time. This exposure was at the top of a mountain where no water 

 and no feed could be got for the horses, and arriving at the mines late in 

 the evening when it was already nearly dark, we had to leave at daybreak, 

 and thus was lost the only good opportunity I had to compare the charac- 

 ters of the sub-carboniferous flora of that S;ate with those of the true carbo- 

 niferous of the Eastern basins. 



The specimens hastily secured in that short time, however, proved very 

 valuable ; for if they did not represent a number of species sufficient for a 

 determination of the general character of the vegetation, they showed 

 mostly new types, as may be seen in the second volume of the Arkansas 

 Geological Report, where they have been described and figured in five 

 plates. 



My next explorations in connection with the Geological State Survey of 

 Illinois vvere, per contra, very productive in valuable discoveries in relation 

 to the flora of the coal. The very able chief of the survey, A. H. Worthen, 

 then gave not only to the direction of the work the greatest energy, look- 

 ing for every possible opportunity of examining himself the coal strata 

 whose station was still uncertain ; but whenever we had chances of obtain- 

 ing fossil remains he gave me sufficient time and his own assistance for 



