528 T. SPRATT ON THE COAL-BEARING DEPOSITS NEAR EREKLI. 



pure shale, thus indicating their hollow or soft pithy heart, like 

 large tree ferns &c. 



The remains of plants were, however, rare. I was fortunate in 

 finding some fragments amongst the heaps of refuse near the mouth 

 of some of the drifts ; and I was indebted for some others to Mr. 

 Barkley, who kindly gave them to me so as to lead to the true identi- 

 fication of the age of this singularly isolated patch of the true Coal- 

 measures, as they have proved to be. The fossils I then procured 

 are now for the first time exhibited ; for, although they were sent 

 to England to my lamented friend Edward Eorbes, for identification, 

 at the same time as my report was sent to the Admiralty, by some 

 mischance the box containing them was detained in some Custom 

 House until the end of 1854 or beginning of 1855, and only reached 

 him shortly before his removal from the Museum in Jermyn Street 

 to Edinburgh, and consequently just previous to his death ; so that 

 only an extract from a hasty letter to him, sent at the same time, has 

 ever been published in reference to my examination of these Black- 

 Sea coal-beds. This appeared soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, in 

 the ' Edinb. New Phil. Journ.,' 1855, pp. 172, 173. 



The fossils themselves have, fortunately, remained at the Jermyn - 

 Street Museum since that time; and, on recently inquiring about 

 them through the General Curator, Mr. Keeks, they were readily 

 found. A list of them has been kindly made by Mr. Etheridge 

 to accompany these long delayed remarks upon this important coal- 

 district ; and as there are ten genera of fossil plants amongst them, 

 they will more fully establish the age of these beds than has 

 hitherto been done. Eor, although a brief visit was made to Erekli 

 and to the Kosloo Yalley (by sea) by Mr. Poole, soon after the 

 extract from my letter appeared in the Edinburgh Journal, that 

 gentleman has only briefly referred to the existence of the Coal- 

 deposits, without giving any details. 



This fact, and the special interest that has recently sprung up 

 in reference to the East, has induced me to think that a fuller 

 description of these coal-bearing deposits and of the district in 

 general, such as my notes and private journal enabled me to give, 

 were now desirable, in a general as well as in a geological point 

 of view. 



I was informed by Mr. Barkley that the coal-bearing deposits 

 extended to the eastward of Kosloo to within a mile of Amasny, and 

 were found in almost every intermediate valley. On the west side of 

 Kosloo they extend to within three or four miles of Erekli, thus 

 embracing an area of nearly fifty miles east and west, and from 

 three to ten or twelve miles north and south. Their northern margin 

 terminates on the coast, and therefore must pass under this part of 

 the Black Sea for an unknown and probably considerable extent. 

 But the entire area is characterized by great disturbances and nume- 

 rous faults. 



The existence of these coal beds was first brought into notice 

 about the year 1838 or 1840 ; but they were not systematically 



