CHAP. XXV.] COAL-FIELD OF ALABAMA. 81 



Western Virginia. In the beds of black shale cover 

 ing each coal-seam, were impressions of fossil plants, 

 precisely similar to those occurring in the ancient 

 coal-measures of Europe and America. Among these 

 we found more than one species of Calamite, several 

 ferns of the genera Sphenopteris and Neuropteris, 

 the trunks of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria, the stems 

 and leaves of Aster -ophyllite, and in other beds the 

 characteristic root called Stigmaria, not uncommon.* 



According to Professor Brumby, this coal-field of 

 the Warrior river is ninety miles long from north to 

 south, and from ten to thirty miles in breadth, and in 

 cludes in it some coal-seams not less than ten feet 

 thick. It forms a southern prolongation of the great 

 Appalachian coal-field, with which I was unacquainted 

 when I compiled my map, published in 1845, of the 

 geology of North America. f Its geographical situa 

 tion is peculiarly interesting ; for, being situated in 

 lat. 33 10 north, it constitutes at present the extreme 

 southern limit to which the ancient carboniferous vege 

 tation has been traced in the northern hemisphere, 

 whether on the east or west side of the Atlantic. 



Continuing our route into the upland country, we 

 entered, about thirty-three miles N. E. of Tuscaloosa, 

 a region called Rook s Valley, where rich beds of 

 ironstone and limestone bid fair, from their proximity 

 to the coal, to become one day a source of great 

 mineral wealth. At present the country has been 

 suffered to retrograde, and the population to grow less 



* See &quot; Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc.,&quot; vol. ii. p. 278., and for 

 a list of the plants, by Mr. C. J. F. Bunbury, p 282. ibid. 

 f See &quot; Travels,&quot; &c., vol. ii. 

 E 5 



