OF ARKANSAS. 301 



of Stigmaria, Catamites, SigiUaria, &c. It is probably from an equivalent 

 geological horizon that a great number of beautiful plants of the same 

 epoch have been obtained by the State Geological Survey of Illinois, in a 

 bed of sandstone underlying the first upper Archimedes Limestone ; an 

 interesting fact, showing the beginning of the vegetation of the coal at a 

 time when the plants had not been heaped up for the formation of the 

 combustible matter, and exhibiting at the outset species bearing no relation 

 to those of inferior strata, or to those of the Old Red Sandstone. 



The coal-bank at Mr. Male's is only eight to ten inches thick ; but appa- 

 rently of excellent quality. It is generally overlaid by a bed of gray, 

 hard, somewhat micaceous soft shales, which contain, besides the leaves 

 of Lepirfodendro7i, a great quantity of beautifully preserved remains of 

 plants.* As the coal-bank where we examined it, was worked by strip- 

 ping the surface, a trench of some length had been opened through the 

 strata overlying it, and had exposed one of those curious changes to which 

 I have alluded above. At one extremity of the trench, the shales, two 

 feet thick, have their normal appearance ; they are gray, soft, or black, 

 and bituminous near their contact with the coal. At the other extremity, 

 and by short transitions, they have passed into a kind of ferruginous lime- 

 stone, or rather conglomeratic iron ore, which is the base of the Conglo- 

 merate series overlying this coal. The same stratigraphical distribution, 

 and even the same changes in the nature of the shales, have been reported 

 for the Geological State Survey of Kentucky ; at the coal-bank of McCormie, 

 near the western limits of Morgan County, where the Subconglomerate 

 coal, sixteen to twenty feet thick, is, at one place, overlaid by soapstone ; 

 at another by black hard ferruginous shales, and at a third opening, imme- 

 diately by conglomerate, the shales disappearing totally. 



About one mile from Mr. Male's coal-bank, another opening (Gallion's 

 bank) has been made in the same bed. The thickness of the coal is the 

 same. Time did not permit us to visit it. 



WOTON S COAL-BANK. HEAD WATERS OF LEE CREEK. 



Section 34, Toivnship 13, Range 31. 



The coal, ten inches thick, is here also placed at, or very near the base 

 of the Millstone Grit series, being only separated from it by the overly- 

 ing shales, and being separated from the upper Archimedes Limestone by 

 twenty-three feet of sandstone and fireclay. At two openings of this coal 

 the shales that cover it are still very different in appearance. At one 



* The enumeration of these plants is given in the Table, further on. 



