478 [July 19, 
Cope.] 
ON THE TERTIARY COAL AND FOSSILS OF OSINO, NEVADA. 
By Epwarp D. Cops. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, July 19, 1872.) 
The locality of the exposure of these coals is in the northeastern por- 
tion of Nevada, twenty-five miles northeast of Elko, on the Central Pa- 
cific Railroad. The outerop is on the south side of the low mountain 
range, bounding Humboldt Valley on the north. The beds are exposed 
in a drift and adjacent cutting, and a shaft 200 feet in depth. The 
strata are argillaceous, and in some degree calcareous, and are very thinly 
laminated ; so much so as to resemble thin brown or black paper in some 
portions of the series. They are highly carbonaceous, and burn freely ; 
some of them with the odor of amber, which appears as a gloss on some 
of them. Descending sixty or more feet through these shales, we 
reach a bed of solid argillaceous material, of a dark green color. This 
can be removed with the pick, but hardens on exposure to the atmos- 
phere. It contains fresh-water shells. The first bed of coal is two and 
a half feet in thickness, with one or two lamine of slate. The second 
bed is twelve feet deeper, and is about three feet in thickness. In qual- 
ity, both resemble cannel, but have more lustre. 
Masses of the laminated shales resemble the braun-kohle of Bonn, 
Prussia, and they contain fossils disposed in the same way. ‘These con- 
sist of multitudes of leaves, mostly of dicotyledonous plants ; of molluscs, 
insects, and fishes; the last two often in a fine state of preservation. 
The molluses present forms similar to Planorbis, Vivipara, ete. The 
insects are mostly Diptera, and some of them are Nematocera. The 
fishes are fresh-water forms, of which, perhaps, four species were pro- 
cured. I have made an examination of two of these, and find them to 
represent both species and genera new to science. One of these is of in- 
terest, as furnishing the first evidence of the appearance of the Catostomid 
type, now so extended in North America; the other is allied to a genus 
which has been discovered in the Eocene shales of Green River. 
The shales are considerably less indurated in general than those of 
Green River. They have been greatly disturbed by the elevation of the 
ranges bounding Humboldt Valley, as they dip nearly south, at an angle 
of forty-five degrees, at the mine. 
The same shales are exposed in the avines on the south side of the 
valley, dipping at one point where a drift has been run, at an angle of 
forty-five degrees to the northeast. They contain at this place plants and 
shells similar to those of the north range. 
The descriptions of two of the species of fishes are appended, with re- 
marks. Further investigation will, no doubt, determine the age of this 
series. 
Extensive beds of a highly silicious amorphous rock appear near to 
these shales, one series being exposed in a nearly horizontal position in 
the valley, but little below the coal shales, and apparently occupying a 
higher horizon. They are filled with huge silicious concretions, and in 
many places assume the appearance of sandstone. Similar strata of sil- 
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