A COAL-MEASURE FOREST NEAR SOCORRO, NEW 



MEXICO. 



We have grown so accustomed to consider that in the Rocky 

 Mountain region the period represented in tlie eastern states by the 

 deposition of coal was inimical to terrestrial life, or otherwise so 

 different from the corresponding eastern time in its conditions that 

 it is useless to search for a coal flora, that considerable interest attaches 

 to any area, however restricted, in which a genuine Coal-Measure 

 flora is present. 



Such an area became known to the writer a number of years ago, 

 but it long proved impossible to study the locality in person. A 

 small suite of fossils reported to have been collected in the fire-clay 

 beds east of Socorro was placed in the writer's hands by Mr. George 

 Thwaites, and, after several fruitless attempts to identify the locality, 

 the occurrence was reported, and, later, figures were given of four 

 species of lepidodendrids which could be distinguished as distinct. 

 There figures occur on Plate VII of the Bulletin of the University of 

 New Mexico for 1900. No descriptions were given, and considera- 

 ble uncertainty still existed as to the age of the formation from which 

 they were derived. 



More recently the writer has not only been able to locate the place 

 and add to the original collection-of specimens, but he has carried out' 

 a considerable amount of field work in the immediate locality which 

 will suffice to settle the principal questions of stratigraphy so long 

 left open. 



Whenever the nature of the contact between the granite and the 

 superjacent rocks shall be studied carefully throughout the territory, 

 many interesting points will be brought out. Whether the granite 

 itself is a homogeneous element or represents various periods must be 

 left an open question. We have every reason to conclude that it 

 represents the metamorphosed sediments of an early geological 

 time, and the writer has. already reported instances where limestone 

 beds within the granite have been found to contain what greatly 

 resemble altered organic remains. It is also known that the gran- 



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