856 COAL STRATA IN EUROPE. 



formation in Ulster, Montgomery, and Sullivan 

 counties, and the earlier coal-bearing strata of the 

 Ohio Valley, we deem it improbable that coal will 

 be found in very large quantities in this state. 



In Europe, anthracite has been discovered in al- 

 most every rock, from lias, which lies above the 

 new red sandstone (which latter rests immediately 

 on the proper coal measures), to gneiss; and bitu- 

 minous coal occurs in the oolitic and new red sand- 

 stone series, as well as in the coal measures. An 

 extensive coal-field in Scotland is contained in the 

 lias rock ; and Humboldt, Daubuisson, and other 

 able geologists, consider the red sandstone group 

 and the coal measures as belonging to the same 

 formation. All the facts on this subject show that 

 the coal-beds occur at very unequal intervals, and 

 that the causes which produced them have acted 

 irregularly, and that it is a hasty generalization, as 

 Professor Hitchcock observes, which would limit 

 workable coal to the coal measures. This able ge- 

 ologist accordingly, so far from discouraging explo 

 rations for coal in the new red sandstone of the 

 Connecticut Valley, which is probably equivalent 

 to a similar formation in this state, actually rec- 

 ommends them. 



Geologists in this country have been too much 

 in the habit of instituting a comparison between 

 our coal-bearing strata and those of Europe, or of 

 making the carboniferous group of England the cri- 

 terion by which to judge of the existence of coal 

 here. But, from what we have stated, the reader 

 will perceive that it is doubtful whether the same 

 rocks, or precisely the same order of superposition, 

 are anywhere traceable : all such speculations are 

 based on the hypothesis of universal formations, a 

 doctrine as yet far from being established. 



