1883. 87 Trans. N. Y. Ac. Set. 



considerable number of coniferous trees which yielded resins. In 

 the clay-beds, underlying this locality in Gloucester County, N. J., 

 a great number of coniferous trees had been found, of remarkable 

 beauty and interest, all differing from the conifers found elsewhere, 

 and their resins must be different. This fossil gum therefore does 

 not deserve to be called by the same name as that of the Baltic. 

 In one pit a whole barrelful had been found and burned by the 

 workmen. From Japan also a resin had been brought, called 

 amber, upon which there were impressions of leaves {Sequoia). 



February 12, 1883. 

 Section of Geology. 



The President, Dr. J. S. Newberry, in the Chair. 



Forty-one persons present. 



The Chairman called attention to the specimens of coal, ex- 

 hibited by Mr. McDonald, from the Brier Hill seam at Massilon, 

 Ohio, in the lower beds of the Carboniferous The material con- 

 sisted of thin alternations of bright and lustreless laminae, the latter 

 forming partitions by which the bituminous matter was shut up in 

 cells and thus prevented from melting together when used as fuel. 

 As it does not cake nor agglutinate, it is the finest grate-fuel in the 

 world. It is found in local basins of limited extent, corresponding, 

 in origin and general features, to the peat-marshes now found in the 

 same region, and which have sometimes filled up a deep canon or 

 valley to the depth of fifty feet or more. 



Mr. McDonald stated that the beds of coal appear to occupy 

 great elongated basins, trending about ten degrees east of south 

 or west of north, seldom exceeding five feet in thickness and thin- 

 ning out at the edges. This basin embraces about one hundred 

 acres of workable coal, from two and a half to five feet in thickness. 

 The stratum is the lowest of the series, and is largely made up of de- 

 tached basins, which are from ten to one hundred and fifty acres in 

 extent. 



The Chairman explained that the elongated form and trend of 

 these basins was due to the excavation ot the containing valleys by 

 the ancient streams, which then as now must have, in general 



