162 D.WHITE RELATIVE AGES OF KANAWHA-ALLEGHENY SERIES 



mon. Most important is the total absence at or below the Eagle horizon 

 in the Kanawha formation of the everywhere common and character- 

 istic species which, in the Allegheny series, range, from the Brookville 

 coal upward. This disparity is the more striking since the Eagle coal, 

 which has been correlated with the Clarion coal of northwestern Penn- 

 sylvania, is over 300 feet above the top of the Pottsville, as the upper 

 boundary of the latter formation has by all geologists been located, along 

 the Kanawha river. It may here be remarked that between the Potts- 

 ville series (Fayette, Sewell, Raleigh, etcetera, formations) of southern 

 West Virginia and the Allegheny series in the typical region there is 

 hardly a distinct fern species in common* although, as will later be seen, 

 identical or modified forms of species in the Fayette and Sewell forma- 

 tions penetrate the entire lower group on the Kanawha. The plants 

 from horizons below the Eagle coal, as, for example, the so-called '' black 

 marble " at Ansted,f which is correlated by local experts with the Eagle 

 limestone, or in the beds at the mouth of Paint creek, show a much 

 stronger impregnation of Upper Pottsville types. On the other hand, 

 by the time we rise to the Cedar Grove horizon the Virginian Pottsville 

 fern types have either disappeared almost completely or they are repre- 

 sented only by well marked modifications. 



Plants accompanying the higher coals of the lower group. — -To avoid a 

 large number of lists, the plants from the horizons of the other coals, 

 all of which fall within an interval of not over 150 feet in the lower 

 group, will be combined in one list. These horizons are the Gas, Tunnel, 

 and Peerless, which have been regarded by the state geologists % as splits 

 of the Lower Kittanning coal of the Allegheny valley ; the Cedar grove, 

 similarly correlated § with the middle Kittanning of Pennsylvania ; and 

 the Ansted-Cotton Hill coals. || 



*The differentiation of the Lycopodiales and Equisetales is easily recognizable, though in these 

 groups of plants which possessjless stratigraphie value it is less marked than in the ferns. 



f Archoeopteris ef. stricta Andr.,* Eremopteris sp.,* Mariopteris pygmtea D. W.,* Mariopteris muri- 

 cata (Schloth.) Zeill.,* Sphenopteris ef. linearis Brongn., Pecopteris plumosa (semdata Hartt),* 

 Neuropteris n. sp.,* Megalopteris sp.,* Calamites approximatus Brongn., Asterophyllites minutus 

 Andr.,* Annularia cnspidata Lx.,* Calamostachys sp., Sphenophyllum saxifragccfoliiim Sternb. [Lesq.],* 

 Lepidodendron ef. rushviUense Andr.,* Lepidostrobus variabilis L. & H., Lepidophyllum sp., Cardiocarpon 

 cornutum Dn. ?* 



The species marked by the asterisk are closely allied to or identical with species of the Potts- 

 ville formation in the type region. 



t I. C White : Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey, no. 05, p. 140. 



I Op. cit., p. 107. 



|| The species in the list may be separated by referring to the abbreviations, each of which ends 

 with the initials of the nearest coal. See p. 160. 



