Feather stonhaugh's Geological Report. 45 



These mistakes are natural, for we easily believe in what we 

 desire. It is impossible in our present defective state of in- 

 formation, without a map which accurately gives the magnetic 

 course of the ridges, to form any but a conjectural opinion 

 whether the anthracite coal of Alleghany, in Virginia, is con- 

 nected by a particular line of direction with any one of the 

 great deposites of Pennsylvania ; and any landholder who has 

 not had leisure to pay much attention to practical geology, and 

 who has been told that anthracite is always non-bituminous, 

 is readily to be excused when, upon finding bituminous coal on 

 his lands, he comes to the willing conclusion that they are 

 within the great bituminous coal field. The public mind can 

 only be properly enlightened on such important subjects by 

 minute and accurate surveys conducted by men of approved 

 experience. All the complexity of the phenomena 1 have spo- 

 ken of would then be reduced to an intelligible and instruct- 

 ive system ; the topographical position of the ridges would be 

 accurately laid down, their mineralogical character would be 

 truly described, every locality would be identified and have 

 its proximate mineral value fixed. 



The next formation succeeding to the old red sandstone, 

 both in Europe and America, is the carboniferous limestone, 

 the base of a group of coal-bearing beds, in which the coal 

 is most developed in the superior member, which has conse- 

 quently received the distinct name of coal measures. The 

 order in which the members of this group succeed each other 

 in both hemispheres, is represented in the following table ;* 

 the agreement in the mutual order of succession of the beds of 

 this series is not more remarkable than that which prevails in 

 the lower part of the column. 



* The European part is taken from Mr. Phillips's admirable work, " Illustrations 

 of the Geology of Yorkshire," p. 11. London, 1836. 



