ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. l69 



The Carboniferous Series. 



Although rocks of this age cover a great extent of country in 

 European Russia, extending over a tract equally vast in horizontal 

 extension with that occupied by the Devonian series, there are few- 

 places, except in the coal-field of the Donetz in the south, where the 

 coal-seams are more than a few inches in thickness; and where they 

 are thicker, they are so poor in quality as to be rarely worth working. 

 The great coal-fields of England, France, Belgium and America have 

 no M^ell-marked equivalents there, nearly the whole of the coal-beds 

 in the empire being, like those of Ireland and the coal-field on the 

 banks of the Tweed, included in the lower members of the system ; 

 which, with the sandstones, shales and marls, are the equivalents of 

 our mountain limestone, as is proved by the identity of a large se- 

 ries of fossils. From a section of the works at Lissitchia-Balka on 

 the river Donetz, we learn that in a depth of 900 feet there are 

 twelve seams of coal, the united thickness of which amounts to thirty 

 feet ; they are associated with sandstones, grits and shales ; and eight 

 beds of limestone are intercalated (containing, from the uppermost 

 to the lowest, marine shells), the united thickness of which is fifty 

 feet, three of the beds of limestone resting directly on the coal. 

 Many of the forms of Equisetacea, Calamites, Sigillariae and Ferns 

 are of the same species as those of the west of Europe ; and the car- 

 boniferous fauna of Russia contains numerous forms identical with 

 those in the same class of rocks in the British Isles. 



A glance at the Geological Map which accompanies Mr. Lyell's 

 ' Travels,' shows the enormous development of the coal series in the 

 territory of the United States, and that it occupies no inconsiderable 

 space in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. We learn from the re- 

 port of Mr. Logan, on the Geology of Canada, which I shall pre- 

 sently refer to, that a great coal-field covers nearly the whole of 

 New Brunswick, a considerable part of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton 

 Island and the south-west corner of Newfoundland. The greater 

 part of the carboniferous series in North America belongs to the 

 upper portion, and not only abounds with numerous and thick beds 

 of coal, but, on the western side of the Alleghanies especially, they 

 are so little disturbed, and lie so nearly horizontal, that the coal is 

 quite easy of access ; and where the strata are intersected by rivers, 

 it can be obtained with little trouble or expense. The great coal- 

 field of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio extends continuously from 

 north-east to south-west for a distance of 720 miles, its breadth 

 being in some places 180 miles*. That extending over parts of II- 



* Oil the 17th of March I received a letter from Mr. Lyell, dated the 16th of 

 February at Tuscaloosa in Alabama, containing a notice on the Alabama coal-field, 

 and which was read at the Geological Society on the 25th of March. He states 

 that he had been examining three coal-fields, the existence of which was unknown 

 to him when he compiled his Map in 1844. They occur near Tuscaloosa, in the 

 centre of Alabama, more than 100 miles farther south in a direct line than the 

 southern limit which he had assigned to the Appalachian coal-field, and arc situ- 

 ated on the Tombecbee, Great Warrior, and Cahawba rivers. That on the Great 

 Warrior river has been found by Professor Brumby of the University of Tusca- 



