No. 161.] 
197 
great coal deposition, may not be found beyond that limit, or in 
other words, within the limits of this State. 
The rocks of the frontier counties of the 4tK district, bordering 
upon Pennsylvania, from the Delaware river to Lake Erie, consist 
mainly of shale and sandstone of a greenish color, which shows, as 
they are not of igneous origin, that there was coaly matter origi- 
nally deposited with them, but in quantity just sufficient to reduce 
their metallic coloring matter, iron and manganese, to their lowest 
state of oxidation, but not to give its peculiar grey and black color 
to those rocks. 
2dly. That these rocks abound in marine organic remains of 
shells and zoophytes, showing the presence of a sea, and not of 
land, favorable for plants, coal being a vegetable product. To 
those who may doubt the vegetable origin of coal, it may be ne- 
cessary further to state, that in all countries, so far examined, the 
regular associates of coal are blue shale, grey sandstone and con- 
glomerate; one, or all, with vegetable remains. The exceptions 
only have other kinds of rocks and marine fossils, accompanied by 
those of the vegetable kingdom likewise. 
3dly. That conglomerate, or pebble rock, though found in some 
of the border counties, is in very partial masses, occuring only as 
the terminal rock. This rock is exceedingly abundant on the 
eastern border of the Pennsylvania coal range, accompanies the 
coal in most, if not all, its localities, diminishing as the coal dimi- 
nishes, going northwest. This rock, in Europe, is usually repre- 
sented as the underlying mass of the coal, though its position, from 
my own observations, is a very variable one. Its presence theo- 
retically, is important, requiring, as it does, agitated waters for its 
production; being composed of rounded stones, the inference ne- 
cessarily is, that land was not remote from the place of its depo- 
sition. 
4thly. Both at the bituminous coal series of Blossburg, in Tioga 
county, twenty-five miles south of Painted-Post, and at White's 
coal bed, likewise bituminous, in Warren county, six miles south 
of the line of Chautauque county, the rocks of the southern range, 
were traced within a few rods of the line of those coal series, evi- 
dently passing under the coal, and forming the support of their 
mass. 
