Letters of Mr. Brongniart, with remarks. 221 
can procure others for me. It will be very interesting to 
obtain a suite of all the fossil organized bodies which are. 
found in the bituminous formation of Westfield ; I am in- 
clined to think for instance, that impressions of genuine ferns 
will be found | there ; it isa thing to be verified by farther 
observations.’ 
Unhappily fe science, the research which led to the dis- 
covery of the impressions of fish, alluded to by M. Brongn- 
iart, has been abandoned. There; is no doubt however, 
that the specimens were genuine. 
The person who brought them, obtained them at the depth 
of about 40 feet, while exploring for coal, four miles west 
of Middletown : he brought his chaise box full of them to 
New 
field and Hesse, nor had he any theories, of ny kind, to 
serve ; his single object being the heeoneies of Saal for pur- 
poses "of profit. It is rermarkable that the coincidence 
which struck Mr. Brongniart so powerfully, and in which he ™ 
looked for the additional, although adventitious fact of the 
existence of copper, holds, perfectly, even in that particular. 
he € great formation of which the Westfield locality i is a por- 
tion, many 1¢ trap 
it is bounded all around - 
mM 
interior, and varies in width from three’ or four to iweanye 
five miles ; ridges of columnar _green-stone trap, stretching 
generally from ‘north to south, in the direction of the length 
of the formation, and sometimes attaining the height of seven 
or eight hundred feet, constitute the most ot feature ; 
they repose on a sand-stone rock—(considered by Mr. Ma- 
clure as the old red sender} formed by vost ruins of 
primitive rocks sometimes unseparated, and v. yin g in its 
composition from a. pudding or breccia with very larg frag- 
ments, toa fine grained sand-sto ne, and this in its turn p 
es into an argillaceous sand-stone, and in some oe into 
slaty clay. Beneath the sand-stone rock, lie slaty rocks 
(we mean argillaccous schist or thonschicfer) of various 
qualities, hes divided by cu veins of coal and jet, im- 
with what appear to be reeds and other elongated 
vegetables, and Gieainety the rock is, throughout, so bitu- 
minous as to burn on the fire. It was in such strata as 
