MAUCH CHUNK OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL BASINS 461 



covered by us in the valley immediately south of Sharp mountain, at Potts- 

 ville, and in a few corresponding localities. This imprint upon the red sand- 

 stone has often the aspect of a large, fleshy leaf, curiously corrugated, as if it 

 had been crumpled, while in a flaccid state, by compression beneath a newly 

 deposited load of sediment. Each' leaf-like portion exhibits a raised rib like 

 an obscure rachis, but in other respects it bears a general likeness to some 

 tribes of the algse, or sea-weeds. Professor Balfour has kindly favored me 

 with a note upon it. 



"We sometimes find associated with this feather-like plant another marking 

 in the rock, which traverses the strata perpendicularly and branches down- 

 ward like a root, and which, from its generally occurring in the same layers 

 with the flatfish, fucus-like impression, we may conjecture to have been its 

 actual root. In one or two instances this root-like form has been seen to pro- 

 ceed from a large rudely spherical body of similar structure, impressed on 

 the surface of the same layer of red sandstone which contained a quantity of 

 the flatly expanded supposed sea-weed — a further evidence of their being 

 related as the upper and lower parts of the same vegetable. The leaf-lilve 

 portion is sometimes between 2 and 3 feet long and several inches wide, and 

 the impressions regarded as its root are of the length of some inches."* 



The present writer was fortunate in finding some well defined plant 

 impressions at White Haven and also at Pottsville. Those on the bed- 

 •ding planes in the White Haven region were: First, fragments of slender 

 reeds resembling thin grass stems and exhibiting joints; second, im- 

 pressions of flattened, strap-like, coarser stems and leaves np to an inch 

 in width and exhibiting suggestions of parallel venation; third, impres- 

 sions of stems with close set spiny leafage, the spines not being over half 

 an inch in length; an illustration of this type is shown in plate 51, figure 

 1 ; these may be portions of the feather-like plant noted by Eogers. In 

 plate 51, figure 2, is shown an impression found on a loose block of sand- 

 stone at Pottsville, which on account of being developed in one plane is 

 thought probably to be the subaerial rather than the subterranean portion 

 of a plant. If this interpretation be correct, it is probably somewhat 

 related in nature to the more thickly set spiny leafage shown in plate 51, 

 figure 1 ; fourth, in sandstone strata the root-like impressions were 

 found as described by Rogers, the roots branching downward into primary 

 and secondary branches and giving rise to fine tendrils; but whereas 

 Eogers found the root impressions of a length of some inches only, the 

 present writer found theni exposed for a depth of fully a foot, with indi- 

 cations of being at least twice that length (see plate 52). 



Specimens, drawings, and photographs of these plant impressions were 

 submitted to A. W. Evans, Eaton Professor of Botany, of Yale univer- 

 sity, who kindly gave the following opinions : 



• Ibid., p. 830. 



