16 



an Equisetites, a Lycopodites and other allied forms, together 

 with a naked, rather spinous vegetable, regarded by him as a 

 cellular cryptogamous plant. 



In view of the general identity of the fossils thus far found in 

 the Dry River and Middle Virginia belts, with those of the most 

 eastern deposit in Virginia, viz., that including the coal of Ches- 

 terfield, Prof. Rogers maintained that the general equivalency of 

 these three areas may be regarded as established, and therefore 

 the Dry River belt of North Carolina, as well as the Middle Vir- 

 ginia belt, ought to be placed in the Jurasic series, not far proba- 

 bly above its base. 



Western Belt of North Carolina and Virginia and its 

 Extension towards the Northeast, forming the so-called 

 New Red Sandstone of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New 

 Jersey, and probably of the Valley of the Connecticut. 

 In North Carolina, on the Dan River, where the rocks include 

 one or more thin seams of coal, the same Cypridse or Posido- 

 niae are found in great numbers in some of the fine-grained 

 shales and black fossil slates. The latter were noticed as early 

 as 1839, by Dr. G. W. Boyd, while on the Virginia Geological 

 Survey. Regarding this fossil, of which specimens were also 

 obtained about the same time from the middle belt in Virginia, 

 as identical with the Posidonia of the Keuper, Prof. Rogers had, 

 many years ago, announced the probability that a part or all of 

 the great western belt was of the age of the Trias, instead of 

 being lower in the Mesozoic series. 



Specimens of the Posidqpise and Cypridse, from both belts in 

 North Carolina, and from the eastern and middle belts in Vir- 

 ginia, were exhibited by Prof. Rogers at the Albany meeting of 

 the American Association of Science in 1851, for the purpose of 

 showing the close relationship between these deposits, in geolo- 

 gical time. Among the specimens from the Dan River, Prof. Ro- 

 gers on the present occasion referred to the impression of a Zamite 

 leaf and a joint of Equisetum Columnare. Prof. Emmons, in the 

 report above referred to, speaking of the marly slate of this sys- 

 tem, says that " it differs in no respect from that of Deep River, 

 bearing the same fossils, Posidonia and Cypris, in great abun- 

 dance." 



