WARD,] THE VIRGINIA AREA, 259 
At the Third Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geolo- 
gists and Naturalists, held at Boston in 1842, Prof. W. B. Rogers read 
a very important paper On the Age of the Coal Rocks of Eastern 
Virginia. The second and much larger part of this paper is devoted 
to the description of the vegetable remains known to him at that date, 
and of which he enumerates some dozen species. This paper was 
published in the Transactions of the Association for that year (pp. 
" 298-316), and is accompanied by a plate (pl. xiv), on which three of | 
these species are figured. It is reproduced in the Geology of the 
Virginias, New York, 1884, pp. 645-658, with the plate. 
When Sir Charles Lyell was making his journey through the United 
States, so fruitful in geological results, he visited this coal field in the 
vicinity of Richmond and made a careful study of the strata and of the 
remains of animal and vegetable life. He took back with him to Eng- 
land a quantity of the material which he had collected and handed the 
vegetable remains over to Sir Charles J. F. Bunbury for determina- 
tion. Bunbury’s report upon this collection was contributed to the 
Geological Society of London, and published in 1847. Bunbury de- 
scribes in this paper about fifteen different forms, a few of which were 
not the same as those described by Rogers, with whose -paper he was 
acquainted. He shared with Lyell and Rogers the belief that Cala- 
mites occurred in this formation, and several of the coniferous forms 
were provisionally referred by him to Sigillaria, Lepidodendron, and 
Knorria. 
On June 18, 1849, Mr. Jules Marcou made a communication to the 
Geological Society of France on the coal of Chesterfield County, Vir- 
ginia, near Richmond.’ Mr. Marcou had recently visited the Chester- 
field bed and had observed the abundant plant remains. He collected 
many of them and discusses their affinities, relying apparently upon 
Bunbury’s determinations. Nevertheless, he refers these beds to the 
Keuper, which was at least a shrewd guess. 
The paper which Professor Rogers read before the Boston Society 
of Natural History on January 4, 1854, makes mention of the fossil 
plants of the Richmond coal field, but adds nothing to what he had 
previously said on this subject. His statement, however, that ‘‘in the 
belt in Virginia, toward the Potomac River * * * he had met, 
in the more sandy rocks, vegetable impressions which, although 
obscure, are strongly suggestive of the leaves of Zamites,” furnishes 
a datum point for future investigations. It is to be regretted that he 
did not definitely locate these discoveries. One additional line describ- 
ing the exact spot at which these remains were obseryed might have 
saved weeks of patient search to the student of the present generation. 
1Description of fossil plants from the coal field near Richmond, Virginia, by C.J. F. Bunbury: 
Quart. Jour. Geol, Soc. London, Vol. III, Pt. I, pp. 281-288, pls. x, xi. meee 
2Note sur la houille du comté de Chesterfield, prés de Richmond (Etat de Virginie), par J. Marcou: 
Bull. Soc. géol. de France, 2d series, Vol. VI, 1848-1849, pp. 572-575. 
3 Proceedings, Vol. V, July, 1854, pp. 14-18. 
