DEVELOPMENT OF PALEOBOTANY IN THE ILLINOIS BASIN 37 



stratigraphy of coal-ball horizons in the United States and Europe, and his concern 

 (Schopf, 1950) about precision in stratigraphic reports of coal-ball sources has 

 greatly influenced American paleobotanists. In his 1950 paper the silicified coal 

 balls from the coal in the Shumway Cyclothem, the youngest coal-ball horizon yet 

 discovered in the Illinois Basin, and the occurrence of coal balls in the Parker 

 Coal at St. Wendel, Posey County, Indiana, were first reported. The latter occur- 

 rence was first discovered by John Lester, formerly of the Stratigraphy and Paleon- 

 tology Division of the Illinois Geological Survey (Schopf, 1941b, p. 11). 



Many of the coal-ball localities in the Illinois Basin became better known 

 to paleobotanists in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a result of an extended col- 

 lecting trip by Schopf in 1948, shortly after he joined the U.S. Geological Survey. 

 Traveling in a Jeep, Schopf visited all the coal-ball localities known to him in the 

 United States, and subsequent collections were made at many of these localities 

 by Andrews, Baxter, Canright, Mamay, Stewart, and others. Schopf made arrange- 

 ments to meet Kosanke near Boonville, Indiana, as he began the tour of the local- 

 ities in the Illinois Basin. Schopf had never before seen coal balls from the 

 Springfield Coal (V) in Indiana and he found the material outstanding . Schopf 

 told Andrews about the coal balls, and Andrews and Baxter set out for the Was son 

 Mine locality near Boonville in a rented truck from St. Louis. Andrews wrote, 

 "We were told by the mine superintendent that it was the first time that coal balls 

 had been found there in some 25 years of mining." Baxter recalled the Boonville trip: 



This was a major coal-ball collecting trip for Henry and me. We loaded at 

 least a ton and, on returning to St. Louis, Henry gave me about a third of 

 the load as my share. It was out of my portion of these coal balls that 

 the exceptional specimen of Ankyropteris glabra came, as well as the or- 

 iginal material of Peltastrobus reedae [Baxter, 1951b, 195°; Leisman and 

 Graves, 196*4-]. The Ankyropteris glabra was almost perfectly preserved 

 throughout 29 cm total length and four nodes and internodes. 



Further details of the Was son Mine collection are given in Andrews (1951) and 

 Andrews and Mamay (1952). 



Schopf and Kosanke returned to the St. Wendel locality in Indiana, which 

 was a difficult bank exposure to work, but they were reasonably successful in 

 getting material. The St. Wendel locality had many roots from large living oaks 

 covering masses of coal- ball material, which consisted mainly of the roots of pre- 

 vious occupants, Psaronius tree ferns. Hall enthusiastically recalled a coal ball 

 from St. Wendel: 



I well remember that first coal ball I cut; it was 'CB 57' from St. Wen- 

 del, Indiana, and the reason I remember it so well is that it had the ma- 

 terial of Heterangium americanum whose phloem I later described [Hall, 

 1952]. Later, Morgan and Delevoryas described Stewartiopteris from this 

 same coal ball [Morgan and Delevoryas, 1952b], 



The next stop for Schopf and Kosanke was the Berry ville locality, where 

 Andrews and Baxter joined them. Later, Stewart made extensive collections there 

 and it was on one of those field trips with Stewart and Delevoryas that Arnold 

 found a coal ball containing three C alamo staohys amevicana cones (Arnold, 1958). 

 The high quality of preservation of the coal balls from the Calhoun Coal at Berry- 

 ville stimulated the use of dynamite, bulldozers, and portable jack hammers, for, 

 as the collection of the numerous coal balls in the seam extended farther into the 

 creek bank, the thickness of glacial overburden made a weekend pick and shovel 

 excavation prohibitive. Andrews first conceived and effectively carried out a bull- 

 dozing operation at Berryville in 1959, and several tons of excellent material were 



