38 THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS. |bull.80. 



cause, as he says, " the fossils of the Carboniferous limestone are those 

 found in the Grauwacke of Europe, while his Grauwacke is without 

 fossils except in the upper strata." The u Carboniferous limestone" he 

 considered distinct from the u Coal Measures." 



In 1836 S. P. Hildreth recognized in the State of Ohio, using the 

 nomenclature of De la Beche, the " Tertiary, Super-Cretaceous, New 

 Red sandstone, Red marl, White Lias limestone, Millstone grit or 

 Breccia, Bituminous coal, Old Red sandstone." The " Pittsburg coal 

 strata" and the " Carboniferous limestone " are described. An "ex- 

 tensive spring of petroleum " is mentioned. A large number of fossils 

 are figured, thirty plates of which are published with names and short 

 descriptions. 1 



In 1836 Featherstonhaugh 2 compared the deposits of anthracite coal 

 and bituminous coal, and stated that the former belongs to an entirely 

 distinct geological position from that of the latter. The " anthracite," 

 with the exception of Broad Top in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, is 

 " without exception deposited low down among what have been called 

 the Grauwacke rocks." And he thinks they will prove u the equiva- 

 lent of Mr. Murchison's Silurian rocks." 3 



In 1837, George E. Hayes 4 gave his reasons for differing from those 

 who considered the rocks of western New York as of Secondary age. 

 He regarded them as " older than the Carboniferous " and of Transition 

 age." 



In 1838 Charles T. Jackson, speaking of the Coal Measures of Mans- 

 field, Massachusetts, refers them to the *' Conglomerate or Grauwacke." 5 



This brings us up to the time of the Geological Survey in New York, 

 and the work of the Rogers in the Pennsylvania and Virginia rocks, and 

 the clearing up of the classifications, due in great measure, for the lower 

 rocks, to the publications of Murchison and Sedgwick in England, which 

 had then reached America. It is interesting to notice that so long as 

 the Transition and Grauwacke rocks were classified in accordance with 

 the Wernerian system, nothing satisfactory was reached. The Coal 

 Measures, the Saliferous rocks, the Grauwacke, the Old Red sandstone, 

 and the Carboniferous limestones, when attempts were made to identify 

 them in this country, were placed in the positions to which they were 

 assigned by the Wernerian school ; position being determined not by 

 study of their stratigraphy alone, but by the primary identification of 

 the rock from its mineralogical characteristics, which were supposed to 

 be recognized, and then by an arbitrary reference of it to a position in 

 the system corresponding to that found in the European series. 



1 Observations on the bituminous coal deposits of tbe valley of the Ohio, and the accompanying 

 rock strata, with notices of the fossil organic remains and the relics of vegetable and animal beds. 

 Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 29, pp. 1-154. 



2 Report of a geological 'reconnoissance made in 1835, from the seat of Government by the way of 

 Green Bay and the Wisconsin Territory to the Coteau de Prairie. 



3 Op. cit., p. 113. 



4 Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 31, pp. 241-247. 



•Ibid., vol.34, p. 395. 



