64 
GEOLOGY-COAL OF BELLINGHAM BAY. 
fracture, somewhat resembling Wigan cannel, upon exposure to the air for any length of time 
it cracks up into a thousand cubical fragments. It burns freely, producing a bright cheerful 
blaze and considerable heat, hut is more flashy, and has far less heating power than the best 
bituminous coals. 
A proximate analysis gives me for its composition the following formulae: 
Fixed carbon..... 46.54 
Volatile matter....... 50.27 
Ashes......... 3.19 
Coke, 49.73, dark, friable, and of hut little value. The amount of gas is large, hut of low 
illuminating power. This coal apparently contains very little hi. sulph., iron, or other inju¬ 
rious impurities, and is extensively used in San Francisco, and was selling, at the time of our 
visit, at $22 per ton, in small quantities, hut could he bought, by the cargo, at $16 to $18 per 
ton. 
COAL OF BELLINGHAM BAY, W. T. 
Geological 'position. —This coal is found interstratified with sandstones and shales on the 
shores of Bellingham hay. Lieut. W. P. Trowbridge, U. S. A., while superintending the 
construction of light-houses on that part of the coast, made a careful measurement of the strata 
of the section in which the beds of coal are exposed, of which the results have been published 
in the geological report of Mr. W. P. Blake, contained in vol. V, U. S. P. R. R. Reports. 
The section exposed, when measured by Lieut. Trowbridge, consisted of about 2,000 feet of 
shales, sandstones, and coal, of which the coal presented the enormous aggregate of 110 feet. 
It is possible, however, that the series is, in part, composed of repetitions of the same mem¬ 
bers, as the strata are inclined at a high angle, and are much convoluted and disturbed in all 
that region. 
Many of the shales are fossiliferous, and vegetable impressions are particularly abundant. 
These consist, for the most part, of the impressions of dicotyledonous leaves, and are similar in 
general character ; and some of them specifically identical with those collected on Frazer’s 
river by the United States Exploring Expedition, under Capt. Charles Wilkes. Among them 
are species of Platanus, Acer, Alnus, &c., as yet undescribed. There is also a Taxus, or Taxo- 
diurti , and a Juniperus. It is probable that all the dicotyledonous species there represented are 
extinct. The coniferae may not he so. A sufficient number of well marked specimens has, 
however, not yet been collected to determine this question. 
The flora of the coal deposits of Bellingham hay is remarkably like that of the lignite beds 
of the upper Missouri, the genera being nearly ail represented on the Missouri, and some of the 
species are identical. 
The lignite beds of the Missouri are undoubtedly Miocene, and it is very difficult to distin¬ 
guish some of the species found in them from those of the Miocenes of Austria and of the Island 
of Mull. 
The strata exposed on Bellingham hay, both in their lithological character and their fossils, 
are closely related to the sandstones and shales of the Columbia and Coose hay, and are, pro¬ 
bably, portions of the great San Francisco group, which forms the most striking feature of the 
geology of the coast mountains. 
The mines at Bellingham hay were among the first opened on the western coast, and have 
already furnished a large quantity of coal for the San Francisco market. 
