532 PALEONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



still the same plants — Lepidodendron, Catamites, and Stigmaria. The 

 black shales above the coal are full of Lingula umbonata, and have also 

 some remains of broken plants, especially Lepidostrobus, of which we 

 obtained good specimens at Mayo's vein. In connection with this 

 bed, and above it, are also the gray shales, with a few fern leaves of 

 the same species, as at Union mines. 



About seventy feet above the main coal at Hawesville, there is, fol- 

 lowing the assertions of Mr. Taylor, director of the mines, a bed of 

 rash coal, with large stems of Catamites and Lepidodendron. It ought 

 to be separated from the main coal by thirty feet of sandstone shales, 

 and thirty feet of black shales, containing the above mentioned fossil 

 shells and plants. Does this rash cod, if its position is exactly mark- 

 ed, indicate the place of another bed of coal, or is it still a continuance 

 of the interrupted black shales which, at some places, are seventy feet 

 thick ? Or, perhaps, has it been displaced by one of the numerous 

 faults which break the level of the Hawesville vein ? These Are ques- 

 tions that remain to be solved. 



Breckinridge coat The appearance and chemical composition of this 

 coal would indicate, for this vein, a far different level. Nevertheless, 

 a short examination of the fossil plants of the shales, suffices to ascer- 

 tain that its geological position is the same as that of the Hawesville. 

 The coal, twenty-eight to thirty inches thick, is entirely cannel, and 

 full of stems and leaves of Stigmaria, the outlines of which have been 

 preserved by sulphuret of iron. Under it the rash coal is seen, with 

 its Lepidodendron, Catamites, and Stigmaria, and it is topped by a 

 heavy bed of black bituminous shales, with Lingula umbonata, and 

 some specimens of decayed fern leaves. As it generally happens, in 

 very bituminous shales, the plants are scarcely preserved. Their out- 

 line only is indicated here and there, but with such indistinctness that 

 they cannot be exactly determined ; the coal itself, however, has pre- 

 served beautiful prints of Lepidodendron. We have previously men- 

 tioned that the Stigmaria have probably been plants of a strong texture 

 — a kind of creeping roots, especially active in the preparation of the 

 fire-clay. If this were so, they could not contain much bitumen, and 

 yet they are found in abundance, and well preserved in outlines, in the 

 richest oil producing coal of Kentucky, and perhaps of thft, United 

 States. Since it is proved that the Stigmuria> were of the natjire, of 



