DEVELOPMENT OF PALEOBOTANY IN THE ILLINOIS BASIN 11 



When I started to work on the paleontology of plants, I was very anxious to 

 find coal balls in America. They had not been found for two reasons. One 

 reason was that botanists do not go into coal mines, and geologists who go 

 into coal mines are not interested in plant structures. 



According to Chester A. Arnold, who recently retired from the staff of the 

 Museum of Paleontology and the Botany Department of the University of Michigan: 



Noe's chief contribution to American paleobotany was his "discovery" of 

 coal balls in North America. I put discovery in quotes because he really 

 was not the discoverer. . .Noe" apparently was the first to realize that these 

 things were something of significance to American paleobotany and that they 

 were worthy of investigation. 



Actually, the first discovery of coal balls in the United States is a rather 

 strange story, first noted by Andrews (1951). The first American coal balls dis- 

 covered and reported were from Iowa in the 1890s, and W. S. Gresley (1901) of 

 Erie, Pennsylvania, illustrated beautifully preserved reproductive structures of 

 Cordaites ( Cardiocarpus and Cordaianthus) and paradermal views of Peoopteris 

 from the Iowa material. Two peculiar aspects of the Gresley papers are, first, 

 that no one in paleobotany seemed to know that the described petrified structures 

 were from coal balls, and, second, that White had known of his work and had of- 

 fered him advice but had not associated the material with coal balls. Gresley 

 did not use the term "coal ball, " but he stated (Gresley, 1901, p. 13): 



In these pyrites concretions in the coal bed at What Cheer in Iowa, this 

 species of Pecopteris is rather common. It was by grinding and polishing 

 that the structural details were brought to light, and I am greatly in- 

 debted to Dr. David White of the United States Geological Survey for sug- 

 gesting that this fossil be figured.... 



Schopf wrote us: 



Although Gresley compared some of the seeds with British coal-ball material 

 described by Williamson, and later Tilton (1912) and Coulter and Land 

 (1911* 1921) described a Lepidostrobus cone from Iowa that showed typical 

 coal-ball preservation, neither White nor anyone else made the connection. 



The Coulter and Land studies, ironically enough, were carried out in the Hull 

 Botanical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where Noe was working. 



Gresley' s coal balls, because of their high pyrite content, apparently re- 

 quired polishing instead of the thin- sectioning technique usually applied in those 

 days, and perhaps that was misleading. Darrah (1941b), who later pioneered in 

 the study of Iowa coal balls, reported to us: 



The most striking difference between Iowa coal balls and those from the 

 Illinois Basin mineral ogic ally is the high pyrite content of most of the 

 Iowa balls. This is also true of the Kansas material from Prontenac. There 

 are, however, a great many nodules from Iowa with low pyrite content. The 

 botanical difference between Iowa and Illinois coal balls is largely the 

 scarcity of lepidodendrids and the abundance of cordaiteans in Iowa. 



Highly pyritic coal balls also occur in the Illinois Basin, but they are generally 

 avoided by collectors because the plants they contain are likely to be poorly 

 preserved. 



