62 Mr. Weaver on the Geological Relations of the South of Ireland. 



very sparingly scattered through their substance, or in thin interrupted layers, adjacent to the 

 walls. These veins have been tried by open-casts to a considerable extent, in which they varied 



forms the centre, and toward which converge the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas, with their 

 various tributaries, may be said to be founded upon the carboniferous limestone ; sustaining on 

 the E. and W. high accumulated ranges of continuous coal-bearing measures. Within the valley 

 of the Ohio, however, there occurs a considerable tract in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, adjacent 

 to that stream, which is composed of transition rocks, arranged in horizontal stratification, extend- 

 ing from the westward of Louisville to the eastward of Cincinnati, in the direction of Portsmouth, 

 and upholding on the E. and W., the carboniferous limestone and accompanying strata, which 

 appear in those quarters'. 



In the immense expanse of the carboniferous rocks of the United States, stretching on the one 

 hand from the State of New York, on the east, with little interruption, to the territories of Missouri 

 and Arkansas on the west; and on the other again from New York State, on the north-east, to that 

 of Alabama on the south-west, the coal is generally bituminous. But great deposits of anthracitous 

 coal occurring in the north-eastern and eastern parts of Pennsylvania, in the field of Carbondale, 

 Lackawanna and Wyoming, as above stated, and more south in portions of the regions traversed by 

 the Lehigh and Scimylkill rivers, have been referred, by some geologists,to the transition epoch ; yet 

 from all that I have been able to learn of their general characters, position, fossil plants and other 

 organic remains, I conceive that they belong to the great carboniferous order. Mr. Z. Cist 

 of Wiikesbarre has shown that there is a continuity in the anthracitous coal formation, extending 

 from a district lying north of Harrisburg, through the regions bordering on the Schuylkill 

 and Lehigh rivers, to the valley of the Wyoming on the Susquehanna, and thence up the valley 

 of Lackawanna, in the direction of Carbondale. Hence to the bituminous coal-fields in Brad- 

 ford and Tioga counties, situated more west, is a distance of only a few miles, and Professor Eaton 

 conceives these formations to be connected, and to pass into each other as portions of the same 

 geological deposits ; a view in which he is supported, not only by the circumstances of position 

 detailed above, but by these anthracitous and bituminous coal-tracts containing fossil plants, 

 identical with those in the bituminous coal-field near Zanesville in Ohio, and with vegetable re- 

 mains found in the great coal-fields of Europe, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, Saarbriick, &c. ; and the 



in which (p. 174,) it is said, " Coal abounds on thejVermilion, Verdigris, Osage, Kansas, Missouri, 

 and Earth rivers, particularly high up on the last, in considerably extended strata." 



' In the transition tract above referred to, are found, of the trilvbite family. 



Localities. 



Calymene Blumenbachii At Cincinnati; Lebanon; Miami River; Louisville. 



C. callicephala Near Cincinnati. 



C. microps Near Ripley. 



C. Diops State of Ohio. 



Asaphus caudatus Near Ripley ; Cincinnati ; Louisville. 



Isotelus gigas Near Cincinnati. 



l' ^t^CTODs I ^^WP^"^*^ ^" Kentucky ; Licking River. 



(See Dr. Harlan in Transactions of Geological Society of Pennsylvania, vol. i.) 

 In the few fossils I collected myself at the falls of the Ohio, below Louisville, and in the hills 

 adjacent to Cincinnati, I was strongly reminded of the transition districts of Gloucestershire, 

 Herefordshire, &c. ; but in an increased degree on examining the museums of those two cities, 

 which contained numerous organic remains derived from the tract in question. Among the Poly- 

 paria might be noticed in particular, Catenipora escharoides, and C, labyrinthica. 



