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XXIX. On the Carhonijerous Series of the United States of 

 North America. By Thomas Weaver, Esq., F.R.S.^ 

 F.G.S., M.R.LA., 8sc. i^c.* 



TTAVING in the year 1834 passed through the United 

 -'--■• States of North America from the Gulf of Mexico to 

 New York, the geology of those vast regions could not fail to 

 arrest my attention. Up to the period of my visit, the geological 

 relations of those States had not received much of my notice 

 beyond what had been published at an earlier day by Mr. 

 Maclure and some others. My mind was therefore the more 

 open to unbiassed impressions. But on my return to En- 

 gland I took great interest in comparing those impressions in 

 particular with the great body of valuable information that has 

 been contributed by different writers concerning the coal-bear- 

 ing rocks of the United States, especially in Prof. Silliman's 

 American Journal of Science, the Transactions of the Geolo- 

 gical Society of Pennsylvania, the separate publications of our 

 countrymen Messrs. G.W. Featherstonhaugh and R. C.Taylor, 

 and the works of Professor Eaton. The general result, as de- 

 rived from this comparison and combination, I have embodied 

 in a condensed form in a note appended to my Memoir on the 

 South of Ireland, there drawing a parallel between the rela- 

 tions of the carboniferous series in the British Isles and the 

 United States; but as some months may yet elapse before the 

 publication of that Memoir in the Geological Transactions be 

 effected, it has been suggested that it would be useful to make 

 an earlier and somewhat more extended communication on the 

 subject through the medium of a scientific journal of extensive 

 circulation.! 



* Communicated by the Author. 



t In collateral evidence of the correctness of my views, the following pa- 

 pers on the carboniferous rocks of the United States are particularly deser- 

 ving of the reader's attention : 



In the American Journal of Science. 

 Vol. 4. Mr. Z. Cist on the range of the anthracite formation in Pennsyl- 

 vania. (1822.) 

 6. Mr. James Pierce on the carboniferous rocks of the Catskill moun- 

 tain chain. (1823.) 

 12. The same author on the anthracite, bituminous coal, salt and iron 

 of Pennsylvania. (1827.) 



18. Professor Silliman on the anthracite region of Lackawanna, and 



Wyoming on the Susquehanna. (1830.) 

 Mr. David Thomas, Geological Facts. 



19. Professor Silliman on the Mauch Chunk and other anthracite regions 



of Pennsylvania. (1831.) 

 Professor Eaton on the coal formations of New York and Pennsyl- 

 vania. 

 19. Mr. David Thomas, remarks on Professor Eaton's observations on 

 the coal formation in the State of New York. 



