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ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
consideration of detail. The basin is of insignificant extent, but the phe¬ 
nomena observed there have been recognized by students as almost equally 
characteristic of the other small basins within the central plateau, so that 
Fayol’s work is accepted as one of the most important contributions to 
French geology. 
The author’s generalizations respecting the formation of coal beds, based 
as they were on such a mass of detail, so conscientiously recorded, had 
weighty influence in converting a great number of geologists from belief in 
accumulation of coal in situ to belief in the contrary doctrine of accumulation 
by transport. Fayol’s presentation of the case appears in many ways con¬ 
clusive, but, in studying the work, the writer found that some points are so 
obscure that he could not make intelligent use of it in the preparation of a 
monograph on which he is engaged. It appeared necessary to make a 
visit to the locality to gain direct acquaintance with the conditions; and this 
was done in August, 1909, with full expectation that at Commentry there 
would be the opportunity to study a coal bed formed of transported material. 
The writer’s examination was confined to the enormous excavations made in 
mining the coal by stripping. 
The generalizations made by Fayol are familiar to all geologists who 
study coal deposits, but his publications have become comparatively rare 
and the arguments on which his conclusions were based are known now to 
few students outside of France. It is well to present a description of the 
area, based on the writer’s observations and supplemented by citations from 
Fayol. The more so, because in respect to several matters of varying im¬ 
portance, the writer’s conclusions differ materially from those of that author. 
Description of the Region. 
The city of Monthn^on, on the river Cher, is about 130 miles south from 
Paris and about 10 miles west-northwest from the little city of Commentry. 
De Launay’s map 1 of the region shows that between Montlu^on and 
Moulins, 60 kilometers east-northeast, there is a double trough, the divisions 
being separated by a granite ridge. The northwesterly division contains the 
petty basins of Commentry, Montvicq and Villefranehe in a distance along 
the strike of about 40 kilometers, the intervening spaces being filled in great 
part by granite. De Launay concludes, on evidently indisputable grounds, 
that these divisions and subdivisions were made just prior to Coal Measures 
time and that the measures in the several basins are not fragments of a once 
} Reunion etc., Pi. XXXVII. 
