188 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
a small township on the junction of a river of that name with the 
Ohio, some 2i miles up which tributary, on either bank, was the 
ground which I had come to examine. At Guyandotte I got a good 
starting-point by the discovery that a sandstone there was the 
equivalent of the " coal grits" of the Staffordshire miners. This sand- 
stone is coarse-grained and calcareous, effervescing readily with acids, 
but still harsh to the touch from its lai'ge quartzose grains. Such 
calcareous bands are wonderfully persistent in the roof of the coal 
seams, both ^t home and in America. 
As this bed dipped at a scarcely appreciable angle from the Allegany 
country towards the Ohio flats, it became evident that in going up the 
Guyandotte towards its mouatain-source, I should meet with older beds ; 
and thus, as I started from the roof of the coal, I should expect soon to 
meet with the coal measures themselves. 
Section 4. 
1. Millstone Grit. 2. Coal. 3. Lower New Red. 
Here, then, the river sections greatly exposed the nature of the 
country, and as the coal commenced on the northern edge of the property 
it became of importance to trace its southern limits — and by doing so 
I became acquainted with every seam of coal, as these, one after 
the other, became exposed in the creeks opening upon the Guy- 
andotte, until ultimately all sigu of coal was lost, and a hard 
rock presented itself, which I could readily identify as the floor of 
the coal. This peculiar rock was a rough, hard, gritty sandstone, 
with occasional impressions of such plants as mark our own coal 
measures — Stigmaria, Sigillaria, Leindodmdron, CaJamites, Ferns, and 
other relics of an ancient flora, which differed much less from our 
own of that period than the American and European floras do from 
each other a'; the present day. 
By this investigation the limits of the coal were easily determined, 
and as the scams cropped out oa the hill sides, above the river, there 
could be no difficulty in making out its quantitj' — the more easily, as 
the beds were exceedingly regular, not faulted, and the dip but slight 
from the Alleganies to the Ohio. 
