524 T. SrKATT ON THE COAL-BEARING DEPOSITS NEAR EREKLI. 



26. Remarks on the Coal-bearing Deposits near Erekli (the ancient 

 Heraclea Pontica, Bithynia). By Hear- Admiral T. Spratt, 

 C.B., F.R.S., F.G.S., &o. (Read May 23, 1877.) 



Towards the end of March 1854, after the combined fleets of England 

 and France had entered the Black Sea, as coal was known to be pro- 

 cured by the Turkish Government from the south coast, near Erekli 

 (the ancient Heraclea), I was ordered to proceed there, and examine 

 and report upon its quality and fitness for the use of war-steamers ; 

 for although two or three cargoes of the coal were seen at Con- 

 stantinople by some naval engineers, the quality appeared to be so 

 inferior as coal (from being so mixed with slate and rubbish), that a 

 general opinion prevailed that it was only a better quality of lignite 

 than that procured from the Tertiary deposits of the Sea of Marmora 

 and the Archipelago. 



It was therefore of first importance to ascertain the age of the 

 Erekli coal-beds, as well as the quantity that could be procured from 

 them with sufficient economy and of sufficiently good quality for the 

 use of our war-ships for steaming at high speeds. 



I could obtain no fragment of a fossil from the coal at Constanti- 

 nople that I examined, nor any information regarding the deposits 

 associated with them ; for, although M. Tchihatcheff had shown 

 that rocks of the Devonian age existed, no mention was made of 

 these coal-deposits or of any Carboniferous strata in the neighbour- 

 hood, in his valuable work on Asia Minor, published in 1853. I 

 now find, however, that M. Schlehan had, in the ' Zeitschrift der 

 deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft ' for 1852, given a full description 

 of some patches of Carboniferous deposits that had recently been 

 examined by him near Amasny, and from which he gives a list of 

 seven genera of Carboniferous plants. 



I also find that M. Tchihatcheff, in his description of Asia Mino 

 published in 1867, has noticed M. Schlehan's account of these Car- 

 boniferous strata at Amasny, and has also given a list of fossils sent 

 him by Mr. Barkley from the coal-beds at Kosloo, as he had not 

 been able to visit the district. 



Leaving Constantinople in H.M. ship ' Spitfire,' then under my 

 command, on the evening of March 27th, I passed Erekli the 

 following morning, and proceeded at once, as the weather was 

 favourable, to the bay and valley of Kosloo, about thirty miles further 

 to the eastward, where the coal was being worked for the Turkish 

 Government under the direction of an English engineer, Mr. John 

 Barkley. 



Steaming thus along this open coast between Erekli and Kosloo, I 

 saw that a succession of narrow valleys, confined between narrow 



