PAL.Ei)NrOLOGIC\L REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 537 



The abundance of fossil plants preserved in this 4th coal, is truly 

 astonishing. At Pomeroy the roof is in some places totally covered 

 with those remains. In some pieces of shales, les3 than half a foot 

 square, taken from Salem vein, at Pottsville, I have counted fifteen to 

 twenty species. It might appear extraordinary that Pomsroy coal of 

 Ohio, and Salem vein, of Pennsylvania, the highest bed of the an- 

 thracite. coal basin, ought to be referred to the same geological level ; 

 but if we believe palaeo ntologic.il evidence, we cannot come to another 

 conclusion, most of the fossil plants being of the same species, and 

 these species being found no where else. Besides, its palseontological 

 characters, No. 4 coal is m irked by its one or two clay partings, 

 which eastwards, become very thick, and form true strati, separating 

 the vein into two or three, and also by the superposition of heavy beds 

 of sandstone. 



Coal No. 5, has not been satisfactorily seen, as the old opening, 

 like that of No. 4, is now entirely filled, and the shales that were taken 

 out not only disintegrated, but mixed up with those of No. 6 goal 

 lying above. 



On section 24, T. 3, R. 2 W., about a mile southeast of the Mul- 

 ford's mines, Mr. Cox examined a coal, and obtained some fossil ferns 

 from its shale roof. These I find to be prints of Neuropteris teneuifo- 

 lla, BrgH., a species so very like Neuropteris flexuosa, Brt., (PI. 6, fig. 

 2,) that is unnecessary to give a drawiug of it. It differs only in the 

 thinness of the veinlets, scarcely visible to the naked eye. This coal 

 vein is cannel at the top, passing insensibly into four feet of black 

 shales, in which the above plants were found. These species of ferns 

 remind me of those which occui in the roof of a bed of anthracite 

 coal, which I examined in Shamokin Valley, Pennsylvania. 



Coal No. 6, has been opened at A-ulford's mines, Union county, 

 Kentucky, where we .first examined it, and where it is called Little 

 vein. The coal is somewhat rashy, mix.d with an abundance of pieces 

 of charcoal, and colored brown with oxide of iron. It. has above 

 it a thin layer of black brittle slates, with i cmains of stems covered 

 by arenaceous, micaceous, yellow, or chocolate colored shales, marked 

 with innumerable remains of much broken, nearly ground up plants. In 

 ascending the bed of shales, they became whitish, passing insensibly 

 into sandstone shales, and the remains of plants m )re and more "pul- 



