295 



lie also presented a specimen showing in what manner the 

 lamina} of the shites have been warped and twisted by mechani- 

 cal causes, indicating great disturbance. When a coal has been 

 powerfully dislocated after deposition, it presents a structure like 

 the contorted and disturbed slates wdiicli surround it. No such 

 structure is to be detected in the Albert deposit. 



Dr. Jackson observed that these rocks are everywhere bitu- 

 minated for miles, and that these veins of coal, in his opinion, 

 are of the same age as the rocks that contain them. The coal is 

 very much changed, 85 per cent, being true coal, and 15 per 

 cent, only bitumen. Bituminous springs are common, bitumi- 

 nous lilms being deposited on the soil ; he agreed with Prof. 

 Rogers that it was not a regular deposit, but rather an exudation 

 than a distilled product. 



Prof. Rogers remarked that the oil wells of northern Pennsyl- 

 vania a-re generally in deposits of the same age as the Albert 

 coal, i. e., they come up through the rocks below the coal meas- 

 ures, which are older than the carboniferous limestones, and which 

 are there the surface rocks of the country. 



Dr. Jackson, from finding fossil plants and fishes, regarded 

 these deposits as belonging to the lower coal series ; if originally 

 bituminous, the coal has undero;one ";reat chano-es, for we find 

 every grade from the coal oil to the Albert coal (softening at the 

 temperature of melting zinc), and even to anthracite ; he consid- 

 ered the Albert coal one stage higher than cannel in the scale of 

 bituminization. 



Prof. Rosers maintained that the carboniferous limestone in- 

 tervenes between the geological horizon of the Albert coal and 

 the true coal measures ; and that this coal, though belonging to 

 the lowest carboniferous series, is far below the proper coal meas- 

 ures or the group of the great productive coal rocks of the Appa- 

 lachians and Nova Scotia. 



The following Standing Committees were appointed 

 by the Comicil for 1860-61 : — 



On the Library. Messrs. C. K. Dillaway, C. J. 

 Sprague, and J. Bacon. 



