APPENDIX. 391 



below the latter point. The general order and parallelisnn of 

 strata remain the same. The coal stratum is apparently present. 

 The qualities of the coal at Armstrong, and at various points 

 below French Creek — the first primary fork of the river — are 

 not distinguishable from the products of the Pittsburg galleries. 

 Less search has been made above that point, but wherever the 

 hills have been penetrated, they have — as at Brokenstraw — pro- 

 duced the bituminous coal. Above the Conawango Valley, which 

 brings in the redundant waters of Chatauque Lake, the Alleghany 

 discloses frequent rapids. The effect of parallelism upon the 

 strata is to sink the coal-measures deeper as they ascend the 

 Alleghany ; and this cause may, in connection with the unexplored 

 character of the country, be referred to in accounting for the 

 absence of coal along this part of the line. The reappearance of 

 traces of this mineral at Potato Creek, forty miles above Olean, is 

 a proof, however, that the coal-formation extends to that point. 

 This locality is a few miles within the limits of Pennsylvania. It 

 occurs in a valley. 



Coal in Western New York. — The coal-bed above Olean is 

 south of the summit of the Genesee, and not remote from its pri- 

 mary source. The expectation may be indulged that the western 

 coal-formation embraces portions of Cattaraugus and Alleghany 

 or Steuben counties. The noted spring of naphtha, called Seneca 

 Oil, is on Oil Creek in this county. As this substance, in the class 

 of bitumens, is nearly allied to the coal series, it may be deemed 

 favorable to the existence of the formation in the substrata.* 

 Fragments of carbonized wood are frequently found in the large 

 tracts of marine sand,t as well as in some of the mixed alluvions 

 of these counties ; and it needs but an examination, as cursory as 

 it has fallen to my lot to make, of this portion of the country, to 

 render it one of high geological interest, and to denote that the 

 coal-measures probably extend into some portions of "Western 

 New York,:}: 



* These tracts bear a valuable growth of pines, which constitute the source of a 

 profitable lumber trade with the Ohio Valley. 



f This mineral oil also occurs in several of the lower tributaries of the Alleghanj' 

 River, within the coal district. 



J A discovery of coal has been announced in Alleghany County, New York, as 

 these sheets are going through the press, more than thirty years after these lines 

 were penned. 



