12 ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 480 



R. W. Baxter, who was one of the first to study Kansas coal balls (Baxter, 

 1951a; Baxter and Hornbaker, 1965), told us: 



Henry Andrews and Sergius Mamay remarked on the differences between the 

 Kansas and Illinois coal balls in one of their early papers on the West 

 Mineral locality [Andrews and Mamay, 1952]. Basically they seem to be that 

 the Kansas material is more varied, without the concentration of Psaronius 

 characteristic of the Berryville site [Calhoun Coal Member] or the concen- 

 tration of Lepidodendron characteristic of the Pinckneyville site [Herrin 

 (No. 6) Coal Member]. In general I think Kansas coal balls are much more 

 comparable to those of central Iowa than they are to Illinois, both in oc- 

 currence of similar species and in a general dominance of the cordaitean 

 complex. 



W. H. Smith, Illinois State Geological Survey, has pointed out that des- 

 criptions of coal-ball masses also were given by Gilbert Cady (1915, p. 76), al- 

 though they were not recognized as coal balls. Cady recorded: 



In parts of the Black Hollow mine, in the clay pits south of Starved Rock 

 Park, and in Bottomly's country bank on the Vermilion River below Lowell, 

 altogether occurring from place to place over 15 to 20 square miles along 

 the anticline and east of it, large calcareous, boulder-like masses of rock 

 lie in the coal bed, and in some places entirely eliminate the coal. 



Again, in 1919, he wrote (p. 55-56), "At places along the Vermilion River, masses 

 of calcareous rock interrupt the continuity of the coal bed, but the distribution of 

 the irregularity is local. " He was referring to the Colchester (No. 2) Coal Mem- 

 ber. 



Apparently White was the paleobotanist most difficult to convince that 

 there were American coal balls. White had a reputation as a master of the paleo- 

 botanical literature, and his personal contacts among geologists and the few paleo- 

 botanists were frequent and linked by much correspondence. It seems reasonable 

 to assume, therefore, that he was not convinced of the coal- ball origin of the 

 material described by Gresley, Tilton, or Coulter and Land. From White's writ- 

 ings (White and Thiessen, 1913, p. 33-34) it is quite evident, however, that he 

 was aware of pyritic and siliceous petrifactions in American coals, and it is quite 

 possible that semantics and/or the preference on the part of paleobotanists for 

 coal balls of high carbonate content accounted for White's remarks about the ab- 

 sence of coal balls in American coals. The Gresley specimens were pyritic and 

 the Tilton specimens were apparently weathered out, probably were not found in 

 place, and had been passed from one person to another. Schopf recently pointed 

 out, too, that our modern knowledge of coal-ball occurrences depends largely on 

 the development of open-cut mining methods, which may expose coal balls in great 

 abundance. Few such exposures were afforded before 1925. 



Several paleobotanists called our attention to an incident at the University 

 of Chicago prior to the first coal- ball discovery in the basin. Recollections of the 

 story by C. J. Chamberlain, a renowned authority on gymnosperms of that time, 

 stemmed from an unpublished tribute to Noe prepared by Fredda D. Reed, Noe's 

 second doctoral student. She kindly related the story to us and provided a copy 

 of the tribute, from which the following lines are quoted: 



David White, Chief of the United States Geological Survey, had come to the 

 University of Chicago to lecture before a Joint meeting of the botany and 

 geology departments. During the discussion that followed Dr. Noe'. . .ventured 



