VERMILION COUNTY. 251 



numbers here used, however, correspond, at least so far as concerns the seams 

 outcropping in Vermilion county, with those adopted by Professor Cox, in his 

 reports upon the eastern counties of the southern part of the State. 



In the neighborhood of Danville, coal "No. 7," or the "Danville" seam, 

 outcrops for many miles. It is here generally covered by from two inches to 

 five feet of a soft black clay shale, rarely a little slaty, which commonly contains 

 large numbers of fossil shells replaced by pyrite. This mineral is also fre- 

 quently present in the form of irregular crystals and nodules of various sizes. 

 Small nodules, apparently composed of phosphate of lime, also occur, generally 

 inclosing fragments offish scales: one has yielded the three-pronged tail of a 

 Dithyrocaris. Among the most characteristic of the species which crowd this 

 bed, are Aviculopecten rectalaterarea, Entolium amculatum, Lima retifera, Solen- 

 omya radiata, Sanguinolites carbonarius, Ufacrodon tenuistriatum, Pernopecten, Myali- 

 na attenuate/,, Leda bellastriata, Gervillia longa, Nucula parva, Astartella, Chonetes 

 mesoloba, Discina nitida, Lingula umbonata, Productus scabriculus, P. longispinus, 

 Rhynchonella Osagensis, Dentalium Meekianum, Chiton, Euomphalus rugosus, Bel- 

 leropJion carbonarius, B. Montfortianus, Pleurotomaria Grayvillensis, P. carbon- 

 aria, P. Beckwithana, Macrocheilus isentricosus, M. Newberryi, Orthoceras Rushemis, 

 Nautilus 4 sp., several minute species of Actseonina, Polyphemopsis, etc. 

 Where the bed is at its greatest thickness, is quite it solid, and the fossils 

 are generally readily preserved : but, in the thinner portions, it is very fragile, 

 and the superabundance of pyrite, in such condition as to be readily decompo- 

 sed, renders their preservation very difficult. Where the black shale is thin, 

 or entirely wanting, the overlying drab shale, which replaces it, becomes fossilif- 

 erous in turn, though elsewhere generally barren, and yields many of the same 

 fossils, though rarely in good condition. This bed can be seen at the upper 

 end of Donlon & Chandler's " strippings," opposite Danville, below the railroad 

 bridge, and also along Ellis's branch, near Georgetown. The black shale is 

 at present most accessible, in its fragile pyritous presentation, at Kelly's strip- 

 pings, about one mile northwest of the court house, and at Short's strippings, 

 across North Fork, opposite Danville, and in its more solid condition, along the 

 inclined plane at the old Carbon company's mines, near Tilton. 



The coal is very variable, both in character and thickness. Near Danville, 

 along Salt Fork above that place, and at Lafferty's bank, on Grape creek, it 

 varies from five feet six inches to seven feet three inches in thickness. About 

 Georgetown, the only place in the county where it has been opened, south of 

 Lafferty's, it is said to vary from three to four feet; at the few points where it 

 was accessible, I could find no thickness over three and a half feet. It is said 

 to be here of very poor quality, and the mines are abandoned. 



This seam is mined at the Horse Shoe bend of the Little Vermilion, five miles 

 above Newport, Indiana, with a thickness of from four and a half to five feet, 



