BRANDON DEPOSIT. 227 



of 1852, I visited Brandon, and found that the fruits were obtained from a bed of brown 

 coal connected with the white clays and brown hematite of that place. I perceived at 

 once that an interesting field was open before me ; and ever since I have been endeavor- 

 ing to explore it. Great difficulties presented themselves, and I have resorted to several 

 gentlemen, both in this country and in Europe, for aid. Their opinion has yet been 

 obtained only in part. But there are several points, of much interest to American 

 geology, cleared up by what I have already ascertained. I have concluded, therefore, to 

 give a brief account of this case, hoping hereafter to make additions to it. 



I would here ackowledge my deep indebtedness to John Howe, jr., Esq., the Agent of 

 the Brandon Iron and Car- Wheel Company, who are the proprietors of this deposit of 

 iron, clay and brown coal. Not only did he do all in his power to aid my investigations 

 upon the spot last spring ; but since then he has sent me, free of expense, numerous 

 specimens of the fruits and the coal ; especially at one time two barrels of the coal con- 

 taining the fruits, and at another time a gigantic mass of lignite, the trunk of a large 

 tree, in fact, which is now deposited in the cabinet of Amherst College. 



I shall first give a description of the topography and geological associations of this carbon- 

 aceous deposit ; next an account of the lignites and fossil fruits ; and finally deduce from 

 the facts some geological inferences of importance. 



II. Topography and Geological Associations. 



Geologists are aware that along the west base of the Green and Hoosac Mountains, 

 from Canada to New York, occur numerous beds of brown compact and fibrous hematite 

 iron ore. That in Brandon lies between two and three miles east of the village. 

 Passing easterly from the village, the surface rises slightly, and exhibits clay, drift and 

 limestone rock in place. According to my measurements with the Aneroid barometer, 

 Brandon village is 465 feet above the ocean, and the iron mine 520 feet above the same. 

 A short distance east of the mine, the Green Mountains rise rapidly. 



At this spot we find the following varieties of substances in juxtaposition: 



1. Beautiful kaolin and clays, colored yellow by ocher, rose-color by manganese, (?) and 

 dark by carbon. 



2. Brown hematite and yellow ochre. 



3. Ores of manganese. 



4. Brown coal. 



5. Beds of gravel connected with the clays. 



6. Drift, overlying the whole. 



7. Yellowish limestone, underlying the whole. 



The position of the clays it is difficult to determine exactly, as there seems to have been 

 a good deal of disturbance of the strata, perhaps only the result of slides. The iron is 

 generally found beneath the clay, as is also the manganese. The coal, in a few places, 

 shows itself at the surface. In one spot a shaft has been carried through it only a few 

 feet below the surface, and the same has been done to the same bed, nearly 100 feet below 

 the surface. In both places it is about twenty feet thick. I found it to be the conviction 

 of the miners, that this mass of coal forms a square column of that thickness, descending 

 almost perpendicularly into the earth, in the midst of the clay. My own impression 

 was, that it is a portion of an extensive bed, having a dip very large towards the north- 



