870 The American Geologist. Doccmbor, 1896 
We thus have at hand an ex))]anati()n of the inunense depos- 
its of stratified silts, clays, boulder beds, and other trash found 
at the junction of streams all along the Monongahela river, 
and especially above the level of the up])er slopes of the river 
gorge, beginning atone hundred to one hundred and fifty feet 
above the present river. 
A large stream, Decker's creek, joins the Monongahela at 
Morgantown, coming in from the east after cutting through 
('hestnut ridge and draining a large mountain area east from 
the latter. At its junction with the Monongahela it has 
dumped large deposits of sand, boulders, and clay, which after 
much erosion still retain, in favorable localities, a depth of 
seventy feet. From this fact, and also because these deposits 
were first studied there, I have named them the Morgantown 
beds, confining the name to the deposits which rest on the pre- 
glacial rock-floor of the river. These beds, which are often as 
distinctly stratified as the under-lying Coal Measure rocks, 
can be found wherever any shelf of the ancient rock-floor of 
the river has been preserved, from the head of the Mononga- 
hela to Pittsburg, and on northwestward along the Ohio, and 
up the Beaver until they are met and submerged by the vast 
deposits of the terminal moraine. About one mile north from 
Morgantown, and near the Flats school-house, these beds con- 
tain beautifully preserved fossil plants imbedded in a bluish 
gray pottery clay of impalpable fineness. The plant bed lies 
at an elevation of 240 feet above the present river, or about 
1,030 feet A. T. 
The small collection that I made of these plants and depos- 
ited in the West Virginia University, several years ago, to- 
gether with collections made at different times by Prof. S. B. 
Brown, of the University, and also some collected by Mr. 
Walter Hough, of the National Museum, were all sent to Dr. 
F. H. Knowlton, the accomplished paleobotanist of the U. S. 
National Museum, Washington, D. C, for identification. Un- 
der date of Sept. 17th, 1895, Dr. Knowlton sent me the follow- 
ing account of these fossils: 
Report on a Collection of Fossil PUints from Jlorc/antonui, 
West Virginia. 
By F. H. Knotvltou, Ph. D. 
Some years ago I was informed by Dr. Walter Hough of the U. S. 
National Museum of the existence of finely preserved fossil leaves iu the 
