1881. 13 Trans. N. Y. Ac. Scz, 
its shape well, cutting like cheese. The color, when freshly cut, was a 
yellowish-brown, but changed rapidly to a dark-brown, almost black, 
in a few minutes. Upon drying, the color becomes a lighter or gray- 
ish-brown. The rock below the ripe peat is a clayey sand. This is 
somewhat impervious to water ; but it is likely that beneath it is amore 
clayey bed which originally held the water and occasioned the swamp. 
In the midst of the ripe peat, termed muck in the letter above men- 
tioned, there was found, at various times and at different places, in 
excavating for the division walls, a substance resembling to the eye a 
bright coal—anthracite if you please. This did not occur in beds or 
layers, or in any apparent regular manner, but in irregular scattered or 
branching masses. You will observe in these dried specimens how 
intimately the coal-like matter and the ordinary peat are mingled. The 
two kinds cannot be separated, and it is with difficulty that the dried 
material can be gotten entirely pure for purposes of analysis. It shrinks 
upon drying, to a greater degree than the unchanged peat. Masses 
which | thought would afford fair-sized dry samples have nearly disap- 
peared. The fresh material has been described as a tough jelly, which 
is perhaps a fair description. It was somewhat elastic, like a mass of 
soft india-rubber, but would break before bending greatly. I should 
compare it to a very firm but brittle jelly. The fracture had the 
lustre of a true coal, and in the dried state the resemblance is perfect, 
Being found in the midst of an anthracite basin, unscientific people 
naturally supposed from its associations that whatever bearings it 
might have upon coal would relate to anthracite coal, not knowing, or 
not remembering, that anthracite is a metamorphic coal. 
Mr. N. L. BRITTON, Geological assistant at the School of Mines, 
New York, has made approximate analyses of this altered peat, from 
material which I carefuly selected; also of the peat contiguous to the 
transformed matter (within the distance of an inch); and of the ripe 
peat from a depth of 13 feet in another part of the excavation. The 
analyses are of thoroughly and equally dried samples, and afford the 
following percentages : 
| Moisture at | Volatile Fixed Ras 
| 115° Cent. Matter. | Carbon. SaaS 
Es RApPede Cat Feevide oct bs ae. eda soe | 6.225 Ren hel 632875 4.625 | 25.275 
eee AL AGIACENE LO.) i oo artis | 3-775 | 22.125 4.625 | 69.475 
Aee exanstormed, Peavy. cc. cfenccn es acs.s 11.350 | 52.800 | 24.725 | I1.125 
4: uranstormed Peat: ... . 2sajeccbe so ass 66.758 | 9.826 4.012 | 19.404 
Number 4 is by the Pennsylvania State Chemist, as published in the 
