536 PALiEONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



a higher level near Greensburg, Penn. In Posey county Indiana, 

 there is a bed of barren shales, abundantly covered with this same 

 plant, which is also in a much higher geological position than the coal 

 No. 4. As there is then some evidence going to show that the coal of 

 Giger's hill occupies a higher position in the Coal Measures, we must 

 leave this for the present undecided, until further data are collected. 



The 4th coal, which has the same geological horizon as the Pomeroy 

 coal of Ohio, and the Gates and Salem vein of Pennsylvania, is gene- 

 rally covered with greyish-black, hard, somewhat micaceous shales, in 

 which the greatest number of species of fossil plants . are preserved. 

 We have already mentioned Neuropteris flexuosa, which is there in the 

 greatest abundance, but it is necessary to name some other species, 

 more or less generally distributed in this bed, and which may serve to 

 its identification in different places of the coal-fields: 1st. Pinnularia — a 

 large confervoid plant, resembling a much branched thread-like root. 

 2nd. A brownish yellow fucoid, of which fragments only are found, 

 detaching easily from the stone, like a thin skin — these are both found 

 especially in the Ohio coal-fields, at Pomeroy and Federal creek. 3rd. 

 Asterophillites — plants resembling' our Horsetails (Equisetacea,) with 

 long whorled branches, bearing, at short and equal distances, whorls of 

 short narrow linear leaves. 4th. Sphenophyllum and* Annularia — 

 floating plants, with whorls of flattened, entire or diversely cut leaflets. 

 5th. Many species of Neuropteris and Pecopteris, especially Neurop- 

 teris finibriata, Lsq'x., and Pecopteris arborescens,~Brt 6th. Flabella- 

 ria boracifolia, Sternb — a plant which, by its long ribbon-like leaves, 

 closely and very finely ribbed, embracing the stem at the base, bears a 

 strong likeness to a species of palm. The stem is seldom found — I ob- 

 tained this year, for the first time, a specimen of it, at Salem vein, of 

 Port-carbon, near Pottsville, Penn.; but the leaves are most abundant 

 in all the shales of this 4th coal, and may be considered a true charac- 

 teristic of it. In the lower beds I have seen some fragments of anoth- 

 er larger species, but none of this. At Giger's we did not find any, 

 and the only species discovered there, except Neuropteris flexuosa, is 

 another fine Neuropteris, probably referable to Neuropteris conjugata, 

 Gopp. This vein has, also, some species of Catamites, Sigillaria, and 

 Stigmaria in its shales, but I never saw in them any Lepidondendron 

 nor Lepidostrobus. 



