28 ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 480 



Schopf received his doctoral degree in 1937 from the Botany Department, 

 University of Illinois, with a thesis on Larix (Schopf, 1943) . Schopf recalled in 

 a letter to us: 



When I first went with the Illinois Survey in early 193^-, my work was con- 

 cerned with plant microfossils but, because I had more botany than others 

 on the staff, I also got introduced to a variety of topics. Also, I was 

 sincerely interested in questions about the coal petrography and origin of 

 coal. It seemed to me that coal geology, in general, was the reasonable 

 field of economic interest for someone who was in paleobotany, and it al- 

 ways seemed strange to me that so few paleobotanists have had more than a 

 very generalized acquaintance with coal. David White, of course, was much 

 the exception, but his interest dates back to the period in which there 

 was a Coal Section in the U. S. Geological Survey organization. I must say 

 that Cady and the other people at the Illinois Survey encouraged me in 

 this broader interest. 



Cady took Schopf to a 1935 meeting on the classification of coal. Schopf 

 wrote, "In the course of that Pittsburgh committee meeting, and in subsequent 

 reflections on it, I did formulate a number of impressions that have stuck with me 

 ever since . " 



The further discovery of coal balls in the Herrin (No. 6) Coal and the real 

 beginning of studies of the Herrin Coal flora (Cady, 1937; Schopf, 1937a) began 

 with a trip to the Clarkson Mine at Nashville, Illinois. Flooding in the mine 

 shaft from an unmapped drill hole had prompted the mine superintendent to request 

 a visit from Cady. Schopf related: 



Clayton Ball and Louis McCabe, who were in process of other studies in the 

 same area, were also interested in a trip underground to see it. Doc 

 [Cady] also took Bill McCabe and me along to help out. This proved to be 

 my first view of coal balls in situ.... I finally was able to concentrate 

 on one specimen from the collection that I named Medullosa distelica 

 [Schopf, 1939]* I know there are other things there that also deserve de- 

 scription. But the deposit meant a great deal more than that to me because 

 it gave me a chance to observe and compare the condition and composition 

 of the pre-coal peat with compressed top coal that we had represented in 

 coal thin sections, and with the spores, cuticles, and other materials ob- 

 tained from the same layer by maceration. As a result, I have felt ever 

 since that the lustrous silky top-coal, commonly found in the upper 6 or 8 

 inches of the No. 6 Coal, was derived from a dominance of Psaronius and 

 Stigmaria roots [Schopf, 1938a]. In other words, I was greatly interested 

 in the paleoecology of the deposit. It seems to me that this is still a 

 very important objective because coal-ball assemblages stand a better 

 chance of characterizing the coal measures peat swamp environment than al- 

 most any other source of information. 



Schopf later wrote Noe concerning the plants discovered in the coal balls. 

 Noe (1934a) had earlier reported on coal balls from the Herrin (No. 6) Coal 

 from the Pyramid Coal Company near Du Quoin, Illinois. 



Schopf s pioneering contributions to the paleobotany of coal are interwoven 

 with the whole development of Pennsylvanian plant studies in the Illinois Basin, 

 as is his lasting influence on the directions of paleobotanical studies by his col- 

 leagues and their students. 



