LOWER KANAWHA GROUP OLDER THAN ALLEGHENY 167 



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gheny series, we find the floral associations in the lower half of the 

 Kanawha series, including the lower group of coals, to be almost totally 

 lacking in the characteristic elements of the Allegheny flora. The Lower 

 Kanawha flora is distinctly largely of Pottsville derivation or affinity. 

 Many of its elements are but slight modifications of types characteristic 

 of the Pottsville of Virginia or of the southern Anthracite field, while 

 the greater part of the remaining stratigraphic species either are closely 

 allied to Pottsville plants or the}' are unfamiliar in our American Paleo- 

 zoic floras. The comparative reference of a considerable number of the 

 species in the latter category to the types described from the Valenciennes 

 series or the Schatzlar series of the Old World is in itself a suggestion of 

 the most intimate relations of the floras. It needs but a cursory exam- 

 ination of the magnificent and voluminous illustrations published by 

 Zeiller* and Sturf to at once reveal the homotaxial significance of the 

 floral- composition of the Lower Kanawha flora and its exact reference 

 to the Westphalian or Lower Coal Measures of the European basins. 

 Thus not only does the Lower Kanawha flora appear by its composition 

 and relations, when compared with the floral succession in the Penn- 

 sylvania section, to distinctly antedate the flora of the Clarion group in 

 the lower portion of the Allegheny series, but the same relative positions 

 for the two series are indicated also by a paleontological comparison of 

 both with the Old World paleobotanical sections. In short, the plant 

 life of the lower half of the Kanawha formation, with its new or un- 

 familiar types, forms an elaborate connecting link between the typical 

 Pottsville or Millstone Grit floras and the Clarion flora in the Allegheny 

 series. 



That the flora under discussion preceded the typical Allegheny floras, 

 at least in the Virginia region, is further shown by the occurrence of the 

 normal and characteristic plant associations of the Clarion and Kittan- 

 ning groups at a higher stage in the Kanawha section. 



FLORAS OF THE UPPER GROUP OF COALS IN THE KANAWHA FORMATION 



Plant horizons. — As described by Campbell and Mendenhall, an interval 

 of usually barren and arenaceous strata, which attains to a thickness of 

 about 300 feet, lies between the lower and upper groups of coals in the 

 Kanawha formation. Reference to their published sections shows these 

 sandstones themselves to occur within the upper half of the entire thick- 

 ness of the formation. The three exploited coals of the upper group are 

 locally known as (1) the Kanawha Mining seam ; (2) the Coalburg seam, 



* Flore fossile de la bassin houiller de Valenciennes, 1886 and 1888. 

 f Die Carbon-Flora der Schatzlarer Schichten, 1885 and 1887. 



