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movement which disturbed and folded the Anthracites of the 

 northwest of France ; and he therefore deduces for the period of 

 elevation of the former, the above-mentioned ascertained age of 

 the latter ; that, namely, immediately after the deposition of the 

 Carboniferous Limestone and previous to the creation of the true 

 coal strata of Europe. This is to assign, in other words, an 

 earlier age by one great period, to the formation and elevation 

 of the American coal rocks than to the European. In seem- 

 ing corroboration of this view, there occurs, in the same 

 quarter of France, as stated by M. de Beaumont, a group of 

 coal-containing rocks, resting in horizontal position on the pre- 

 viously upturned edges of the folded anthraciferous strata, and 

 therefore of a posterior age ; and these he regards in his Essay 

 as of the true period of the coal formation of Europe. 



Now the chief object of the present communication is to call 

 attention to two main points of geological evidence, which go 

 rather to invalidate the conclusions of M. de Beaumont, and to 

 refer the great coal deposits of the United States to the age of 

 the true coal rocks of Europe. A first and almost conclusive 

 argument is, the much closer accordance which subsists between 

 the organic remains, both vegetable and animal, of the American 

 and the European coal measures, than between those of the 

 American coal and those of the European Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone. The other fact is, the now ascertained Permian or even 

 later age of the coal-containing strata unconformably overlying 

 the Anthraciferous rocks of France, which may therefore, so 

 far as any evidence from position is to be regarded, prove them- 

 selves to be the equivalents of the true coal formation of the west 

 of Europe and not of the Carboniferous Limestone. Either the 

 Anthracite beds of Mayenne and Sarthe are older than our 

 American coal seams, and of a different date of elevation, 

 despite the concurrence in the direction of their lines of up- 

 heaval, or else they are parallel in time, and the evidence pre- 

 sented by the skilful French Paleontologists, is imperfect and 

 demands revision. The authors of the communication pretend 

 not to decide this question, but content themselves with intimat- 

 ing, that in view of the obvious equivalency of the American 

 coal strata with the European, as demonstrated by their fossils, 

 and considering the grand scale upon which the American form- 



