110 GEOLOGY OP OHIO. 



the impressions of coal plants, and a bed of coal which is locally work- 

 able. 



It is also true that at various places in the State vegetable matter 

 accumulated in the Conglomerate in sufficient quantities to form thin 

 and local beds of coal. These layers of coaly matter are, however, 

 plainly composed of drifted material, are not superimposed upon fire- 

 clay, as are the coal seams of the Coal Measures, and are not of such 

 a character as to justify the assertion made by some geologists, that 

 we have in Ohio a system of false Coal Measures lying in or below the 

 Conglomerate. 



In Trumbull and Medina counties, on the extreme edge of the coal ba- 

 sin, we occasionally find the roof-stone of Coal No. 1 containing patches of 

 conglomerate, and this occurs in a still more marked degree near Sharon, 

 Penn. These cases have led some geologists to suppose that our Coal 

 No. 1 was located in or below the Conglomerate ; but such is not the 

 case, for this coal stratum is opened at a thousand places in the State, 

 and its normal position is proven to be above the Conglomerate. The 

 explanation of the cases I have alluded to seems to me simply this : 

 When Coal No. 1 was formed, the marsh in which it accumulated was 

 bordered on the north and overlooked by gravel hills which now form 

 the Conglomerate, greatly developed in this direction. In the submerg- 

 ence which buried Coal No. 1 some of the gravel from these hills was 

 washed down on to and over the coal, with large quantities of sand which 

 now form the great bed of sandstone over the Briar Hill coal. 



The fossils of the Conglomerate are almost universally plants, of spe- 

 cies found in the overlying Coal Measures. Where the material compos- 

 ing it is coarse, they consist of fragments of tree trunks, branches of 

 calamites, nuts, etc., all more or less broken, and showing evidences of 

 transportation and accumulation in the same way that drift-wood is 

 gathered by river currents or shore waves. In some localities these 

 vegetable remains are crowded together so as to form a mass in the 

 sandstone many feet in thickness, and extending over several square 

 rods. Here the trunks, branches, reeds, etc., are intermingled in such 

 confusion that it is difficult to extract an individual specimen of any 

 considerable dimensions. Generally the fragments are broken and 

 water- worn, and it is not at all uncommon to find far up in the in- 

 terior of what were hollow calamites Trigonocarpa, which were the 

 fruits of a different plant. At Cuyahoga Falls, where the Conglomerate 

 is cut from top to bottom by the river, the plants which characterize 

 this formation are found in great abundance, but always in the condi- 

 tion I have described ; the trunks and branches of trees (Lepidodendron 



