5) 
MINERAL COAL. Sark 
The areas of the ‘‘ coal-measures” of the Carboniferous era, in 
the United States, are as follows : 
1. A small area in Rhode Island, continued northward into Massa- 
chusetts. 
2. A large area in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, stretching east- 
ward and westward from the head of the Bay of Fundy. 
These two areas are now separated ; but it is provable that they 
were once united along the region, now submerged, of the Bay of 
Fundy and Massachusetts Bay. 
3. The Alleghany Region, which commences at the north on the 
southern borders of New York, and stretches southwestward across 
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Tennessee to Alabama, and west- 
ward over part of Eastern Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and a smail 
portion of Mississippi. To the north, the Cincinnati ‘ uplift,” or 
the Silurian area extending from Lake Erie over Cincinnati to Ten- 
nessee, forms the western boundary. 
4, 'The Michigan coal area, an isolated area wholly confined within 
the lower peninsula of Michigan. 
5. The Hastern Interior area, covering nearly two-thirds of Illinois, 
and parts of Indiana and Kentucky. 
6. The Western Interior area, covering a large part of Missouri, 
and extending north into Iowa, and South, with interruptions, through 
Arkansas into Texas, and west into Kansas and Nebraska. 
The Illinois and Missouri areas are connected now only through the 
underlying Subcarboniferous rocks of the age ; but it is probable that 
formerly the coal fields stretched across the channel of the Missis- 
Sippi, and that the present separation is due to erosion along the 
valley. Rocks of the Carboniferous period extend over large portions 
of the Rocky Mountain area, but they are mostly limestones, and are 
barren of coal. 
The extent of the coal-bearing area of these Carboniferous regions 
is approximately as follows : 
Puodevis land sareays ..bi.n0o5 wees vs 26 dls 500 square miles. 
eMUEGaMYpATCALK Mh. DAs so. Ros ee slaw d 59,000 square miles. 
Miehieemmamneae ee Ve wdias dally hae ies 2 6,700 square miles. 
Illinois, Indiana, West Kentucky ovate 47,000 square miles. 
Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas 78,000 square miles. 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick....... 18,000 square miles. 
The whole area in the United States is over 190,009 square miles, 
and in North America about 208,090. Of the 190,000 square miles, 
perhaps 120,000 have workable peds of coal. 
Anthracite is the coal of Rhode. Island, and of the areas in Central 
Pennsylvania, from the Pottsville or Schuylkill eoal field to the Lacixa- 
wanna field, while the coal of Pittsburg, and of all the great coal- 
fields of the Interior basin, is bituminous, excepting a small area in 
Arkansas. Anthracite belongs especially to regions of upturned 
rocks, and bituminous coal to those where the beds are little disturbed. 
In the area between the anthracite region of Central Pennsylvania 
and the btuminous of Western, and farther south, the coal is semi- 
bituminous, as in Broad Top, Pennsylvania, and the Cumberland coal 
ficld in Western Maryland, the volatile matters yielded by it being 15 
