126 Mr. Weaver on the Carbtmiferous Series 



perfect horizontality of the strata throughout, the prevailing 

 deviation from that position being a slight inclination to the 

 southward, subject however to gentle undulations upon a large 

 scale. 



Valuable beds of bituminous coal occur low down in the car- 

 boniferous limestone as well as in the higher accumulation of 

 the common coal-bearing measures. Coal is thus obtained in 

 the former adjacent to the Mississippi, near Memphis in Te- 

 iiessee, and bordering on the confluence of the Missouri with 

 that river, and in Illinois; also near the Ohio river in the vi- 

 cinage of Owenborough in Kentucky, and in Indiana opposite 

 to Hawesville. 



In its western extent into Arkansas the carboniferous lime- 

 stone appears to come in contact partly with a greywacke 

 tract and partly with the old red sandstone. 



From the vicinage of the Great Kanawha river the conti- 

 nuous coal-bearing measures extend to the south-west through 

 Western Virginia and the eastern parts of Kentucky and Te- 

 nessee into the northern parts of Alabama, and to the north- 

 east, as above stated, through Pennsylvania into the State of 

 New York. 



In the conterminous regions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and 

 Virginia, the continuous coal-bearing measures include not 

 unfrequently intercalated beds of limestone, which often con- 

 tain marine animal remains. Some of the coal measures are 

 said also to exhibit in places fossil freshwater shells; and in 

 this general series, beds of sandstone conglomerate are not of 

 uncommon occurrence. 



In the State of New York the carboniferous limestone, which 

 underlies these coal measures, reposes partly on old red sand- 

 stone, partly on transition rocks. At the northern extremity 

 the old red sandstone which lines the south coast of Lake 

 Ontario from the west of the Niagara to the east of the Oswego 

 river, distinctly underlies the limestone shale and limestone 

 from Queenstown, by the gorge, upward to within two hundred 

 yards of the ferry below the Falls of Niagara, with a gentle 

 dip throughout to the southward. The same relative position 

 is observable west of Lockport, in proceeding east from Lewis- 

 town by the line of road that leads to Rochester, also in the 

 Genesee river north of the latter town, and in the course of 

 the Oswego river. To the east of the Oswego the old red 

 sandstone reposes on transition rocks, and being deflected to 

 the south-east, on approaching the Heklerberg mountains it 

 appears to be overlapped and concealed by the carboniferous 

 limestone, the latter then coming in contact with the transition 

 rocks on the east, which range from Canada to the southward : 



