228 



Scientific Geology. 



stone series, as well as in the proper coal measures.* True, so far 

 as we yet know, the coal measures contain the principal deposites of 

 the latter species in Europe ; and perhaps in this country: though I 

 do not admit that our bituminous coal fields have yet been certainly 

 identified with those in Europe. But who knows whether the cir- 

 cumstances under which our new red sandstone was deposited, might 

 not have been such as to produce extensive masses of coal % This 

 would not constitute so great a difference between our new red sand- 

 stone and that in Europe, as the almost entire absence in the former 

 of gypsum and rock salt ; minerals which, on the eastern continent, 

 are regarded as eminently characteristic of this formation. In Eng- 

 land, it is true, no coal has been found in the new red sandstone : and 

 on the European continent, only occasionally in thin seams : but it 

 has been recently ascertained, that the Brora coal field in Scotland, 

 which is probably the equivalent of the coal field of the eastern 

 Moorlands of Yorkshire in England, and hot improbably of that of 

 Tecklenburg — Lingen in Prussia, is contained in the lias ;t a forma- 

 tion which lies above the new red sandstone : and, therefore, ev- 

 ery presumption is in favor of finding coal in the new red sand- 

 stone ; since this lies between the lias and the real coal measures. 

 This conclusion is still farther strengthened by the fact, that Hum- 

 bolt, Daubuisson, and other able geologists, consider the red sand- 

 stone group and the coal measures as belonging to the same forma- 

 tion. J All these facts prove, it seems to me, that it was a hasty gen- 

 eralization which limited workable coal to the coal measures ; and 

 that, therefore, we should not be prevented from searching for coal in 

 the new red sandstone of the Connecticut valley. 



The coal in this rock occurs in the form of thin veins and irreg- 

 ular nodules, which are rarely but a few inches in diameter. In 

 almost every instance, it appears to be the result of the carbonization 



* See Brongniart's Tableau de la Succession at de la Disposition des Terrains et 

 Roches, &c. Paris, 1829. Also Conybeare and Phillips's Geology of England and 

 Wales, Vol. 1. p. 329. Al. Brongniart also describes, as occurring in the Plastic 

 Clay Formation of Mount Meissner in Hesse, " a true anthracite — that is to say, 

 a dense carbon without bitumen, sometimes with a dull, sometimes with a shining 

 fracture. We here find a thicker bed of compact, solid bituminous carbon, hav- 

 ing- a nearly straight fracture, burning with facility, and presenting many of the 

 characters of true coal." — Phil. Mag. vol. 2. N. Series, p. 108. 



t Philosophical Magazine, vol. 2. N. Series, p. 101. 



% De la Beche's Geological Manual, 2d Edition, (London, 1832.) p. 405. 



