xt7x0k26bf3r https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7x0k26bf3r/data/mets.xml Lesquereux, Leo, 1806-1889. 1861  books b96-11-34702459 English Printed at the Yeoman Office, J.B. Major, state printer, : [Frankfort : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Paleobotany Carboniferous. Paleobotany Kentucky. Coal Kentucky. Report of the fossil flora, and of the stratigraphical distribution of the coal in the Kentucky coal fields  / by Leo Lesquereux. text Report of the fossil flora, and of the stratigraphical distribution of the coal in the Kentucky coal fields  / by Leo Lesquereux. 1861 2002 true xt7x0k26bf3r section xt7x0k26bf3r 
















       REPORT

          0 HZ


FOSSIL FLORA,

         AND 0 TNZ



STRATIGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF

                    1! TMC


           KENTUCKY COAL FIELDS,



THE COAL



BY



LEO LWSQUZIEUX, PAL LOWTOLOGICAL AssisTAi.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.



                                COLUsBUs, O., January 31st, 1860.
D. D. Owen, M. D.:
  DEAR SIR: According to your instructions, I spent the months of
May and June, 1858, in a detailed exploration of the coal fields of
Union, Crittenden, Hopkins, Christian, Muhlenburg, Ohio, Daviess, and
Henderson counties, of which I had, the previous year, made only a
short reconnoissance.  The months of August and part of September,
of the same year, were employed in surveying the distribution of the
coal strata of Bath, Montgomery, Powell, Morgan, Owsley, and Breathitt
counties. In the first of these explorations I was accompanied by Mr.
Alfred Owen; in the second by MKajor T. C. Downie. To both these
gentlemen I wish to express my gratitude for kind and valuable assist-
ance. Continuing the explorations of the eastern coal fields, during the
month of 'May and part of June, 18-59, I surveyed Greenup, Carter,
Lawrence, Johnson, and Floyd counties. But owing to the sudden sick-
ness of Mr. Alfred Owen, my assistant, I had to perform the greatest
part of the work alone. The difficulty of the task would have been
severe but for the assistance and hospitality which I received everywhere
from the inhabitants, who generally manifested the greatest interest in
the survey. It is the result of those different explorations that I take
the liberty to present to you, sincerely desiring that it may meet your
approbation.
  Since the publication of my former report, the final report of the
Geological Survey of Pennsylvania has appeared, contrary to general ex-
pectation. In this work, I am accused by Prof. II. D. Rogers, formerly
director of the Geological State Survey of Pennsylvania, of plagiarism,
or of a breach of literary obligation, for the quotation of half a page of
my own reports delivered to him in 1854, and of the disposal of which
I bad since been left entirely ignorant. It is evident that no general

 

334                     ITODUCTORY LmR.

conclusion can be drawn from paleontological researches, except from a
comparison of the distribution of the fossil plants in the coal strata of
many and far distant localities. To prevent a geologist from making
such comparisons, by denying him the use of his own observations, till
a publication, though indefinitely postponed, of his report, is made, is
truly the same as depriving a workman of his tools. I was thus forced
to recall a few of the observations made by myself years ago, in Penn-
sylvania; and as I was careful to mention the source of the quotation
and the right of property of the Pennsylvania survey, the accusation of
Prof HI D. Rogers will appear to every impartial mind as unjust as
unaccountable.                   Very respectfully yours,
                                            LEO LESQUERE1JX.

 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.



  Mly first palmeontologieal explorations in Kentucky were made in too
short a time, and extended over too large an area of country, to give at
once satisfactory and ieliable iesults. They embraced a general recon-
noissance of the western coal fields of Kentucky; therefore, my first
report gave only a very general survey of the western coal measures, to
be completed by subsequent and more detailed researches. Even now,
it is not to be supposed that this report will satisfy the expectations of
every coal proprietor. Although prepared to mark the geological horizon
of most of the beds of coal iwhich I had an opportunity of surveying,
there are still many out-crops, even open coal beds, which could not come
under my examination; either for want of time to visit them, or becaume
the beds being still unopened, the characters of the shales and fossils could
not be ascertained.
  There is, indeed, a great difficulty attending the application of pa'reon-
tology to the identification of the coal strata. The fossil plants being,
of course, unequally and irregularly distributed in the shales of the coal
beds, and the shales themselves being sometimes entirely wanting, obscure
out-crops of coal can scarcely be studied, and, therefore, cannot be placed
with accuracy, when they are not exposed by a good entry.
  This deficiency in the application of palkeontology to the determination
of geological levels of the coal, induced me to extend somewhat the
range of my explorations, and to examine and report the stratigraphical
distribution of the coal as often as it was possible to do so with advan-
tage. I have always endeavored, first, to determine the position of each
coal bed by the fossil plants of the shales; and afterwards, even if the
examination gave entire satisfaction, I have made, when it was possible, a
section either of the coal itself, with the adjoining strata, or of the meas-
ures exposed in its connection.

 

3NTROD(,CTORY BMIARKS.



  In reporting a number of these sections, I may possibly have to go
over a few that have already been published; but this reviewing of sec-
tions. even if it should be of frequent occurrence, will still become useful
ior the following reasons:
  First. The explorations of the coal strata form now a distinct part of
the geological survey. It would, therefore, be advantageous to reconsider
the dihferent data which have been collected and present them all together.
  Secondly. The reliability of palieontological et idence has been, and may
still be, often disputed. It is theretore necessary to prove its correctness
by comparative sections, made in dilkrent localities. This comparison
cannot always be established upon unpublished sections only.
  Th[firdly. Good, comparative lithological sections, of actual superposi-
tion, combined with paleontological evidence, afford the only means of
ascertaining the relation of the strata in the difllrent coal fields of Ken-
tucky and of America. The identity of the fossil plants of a bed of
coal, more or less distant from another, oflers at once evidence of hori-
zontal equivalence, and affords easy means of comparing entire sections.
All the sections published without this fixed point as a basis of a com.-
mon geological horizon, may be interesting for some particular locality,
but are more or less uncertain, and often useless, in a general examination
of the coal measures. Moreover, these comparative sections furnish the
best indications to direct the researches for coal in the intervening
localities.
  The plan of this report is, therefore, easily traced; it is first necessary
to review the general character, either paleontological or stratigraphical,
of each bed of coal, and to establish the value of these characters by
some local sections.  This mode of examination may be somewhat
tedious, but it will afford solid materials for the true history of our coal
formations.
  I shall then make a general section of each county which I have sur-
veyed, pointing out all the beds of coal examined, and their relative
position in the section.
  A comparison of the distribution of the coal strata, in both the west-
ern and eastern basins of Kentucky, must necessarily follow, and must
be extended as far as possible over the coal measures of Ohio, Pennsyl-
vania, etc.
  I deeply regret that I "as -unable to extend niy explorations over the



336

 

PAL XONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



entire coal fields of Kentucky; but the time, as yet, has been too limited
for such a work, and therefore much remains still to be done for a full
description of the Kentucky coal measures. According to the directions
of the State Geologist, I have examined the richest parts of the coal
fields, especially those which are easy of access, and the more likely to
attract the attention of the miner and the capitalist.

             NATURAL DIVISION OF THE COAL MEASURES.
  If I had to report, on the western coal fields of Kentucky only, I
should have little or nothing to communicate on any beds of coal under
the conglomerate. But the exploration of the eastern coal basin has
shown that the true coal measures begin there immediately above the
sub-carboniferous limestone, or, when this limestone is absent, the coal
succeeds immediately to the sub-carboniferous knob sandstone, or the
upper division of the Chemung group. As some beds of these inferior
strata of coal are of workable thickness and of excellent quality, it
becomes of the first importance that their position should be described,
and their characters, as far as they are determined, made known.
  The coal measures below the conglomerates have been generally dis-
tinguished by a peculiar name from the measures above; they have been
called false coal measures, proto-carboniferous formations, &c. I see no
good reason for this distinction. If it is based on the fact that the
inferior coal beds are not generally found over the whole extent of the
coal fields of America, the same can be said of the coal strata between
the 'Mahoning and the Anvil Rock Saldstone, and particularly of the
upper coal measures above the Anvil Rock. If this separation is made,
from the thickness and extent of the great deposit of sandstone named
conglomerate, or from its composition of coarser and more pebbly mate-
rials, the same reason for a further separation of the coal measures might
be found in the thickness, extent, and composition of the Mahoning, and
even of the Anvil Rock Sandstones. A separation of the inferior coal
beds from the higher measures associated with them, could only be
authorized by a difference in the vegetation of which the coal has been
formed, and consequently in the species of plants found in the shales.
But this difference does not exist, as we shall see presently. It is, there-
fore, more rational to take the coal measures in their whole vertical extent,
           4B



337

 

338       PAIFA.)!-TOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

as a single and inseparable formation, dividing them, for the sake of a
better understanding, in four different parts.
  1. The coal measures below the conglomerate.
  2. The measures between the conglomerate and the Miahoning sand-
stone.
  3. Those between this last sandstone and the Anvil Rock.
  4. The upper coal measures above it, with their top still undeter-
mined.
COAL MEASURES BELOW THE CONGLOMERATE-GENERAL DISTRIBUTION.
  They appear in the western coal fields of Kentucky-
  1st. Near Caseyville, in Crittenden county, in a stratum of black
shales containing a thin coal. This shale is well exposed at a short dis-
tance from Bell's mine, on the bank of the creek.
   2d. In Breckinridge and Meade counties, where two beds of thin coal
have been observed in the thick strata of sub-carboniferous limestone,
they have not yet exposed a workable bed.
   In the eastern coal fields, those low measures are much better devel-
oped, and exposed nearly all along the western edges of the basin. I
examined the first outcrops of their coal near Jas. Wills', in Montgomery
county; then between Slate and Beaver creeks, on the road to McCor-
mick's, as also just above Mr. McCormick's house, on the road to
Hazlegreen, and a few miles south of the head waters of Emmet's fork
of Indian creek.
   The most northerly outcrops of these coals which I visited, was at
Clear creek, in Bath county, and the farthest southward at L. Bush's, on
Walker creek, Owsley county, on the road between Proctor and Hazle-
green.
   South of Owsley county, or even in this county, the inferior coal
measures appear to thicken considerably in some places. Near Proctor,
and in Pulaski and Rockeastle counties, they contain three to five beds
of coal, one of which is worked four to five feet in thickness.t Above
the shales of the Cumberland river, in Wayne and Clinton counties, Mr.
Jas. Lesley, jr. reports two, and sometimes three beds of coal, below the
conglomerate. In Northern Tennessee, near the limits of Kentucky,
Prof J. M. Safford has observed five (5) veins of coal in the same
   My Ae Report, diagram 4th and section, vol. 2, p. 88.
  tReport 1st, diagram 4th, p. 233-237.

 

PAL.XONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



situation one of which attains, in some pot holes, a thickness of five
feet.  In Virginia, south of the Kanawha Salines, Dr. S. H. Salisbury
has seen five (3) beds of coal below the conglomerate, one of which is
formed of alternate layers of slate and coal six to seven feet thick. The
sub-conglomneratic coal has been observed, also, by boring salt in the
interior of the coal measures. The section of Wartield, on Tug river,
will show its position.
  It is a remarkable fact that this lower coal has never been seen along
the western edge of the coal measures of Ohio, where in many places
the conglomerate attains to a great thicknes, when on the contrary, the
sub-conglomeratic coal appears to be developed in Mercer and McKean
counties of Northern Pennsylvania.

          PAL)EONTOLOGY OF THE LOWEST COAL MEASURES.
  As far as has been ascertained, the paleontology of the coal beds
below the conglomerate is very uniform. I have only found in the shales
covering them the leaves, the cones or catkins, and the bark of diflerent
species of Lepidodendron. Judging from analogy, I sEuppose that this
peculiar flora of the low coal will be found generally of the same nature
in the whole extent of the measures below the conglomerate, with the
exception of a few particular species to each different bed of coal; but
this supposition wants to be sustained by sufficient palaeontological evi-
dence.
  At S. Wills' coal, the shales intermediate to the two beds of coal are
entirely covered with the leaves of Lepidodendron. These leaves (plate
3,fig. 2) are easily known by their resemblance to long and narrow
blades of grass. Although the appearance and nature of these shales is
very different in two exposures of the same coal, being at one place
hard, black, and fissile, when at a few yards distance they are replaced
by a kind of yellow, soft clay, these leaves of Lepidodendron are found
in the same abundance in both.
  On the head waters of Emmet's fork, the bed of coal worked by Mr.
McCormick is 75 feet below the conglomerate, and apparently on a
lower level than the former, vet the shales covering the coal contain only
leaves of Lepidodendron, with a few cones of the same tree, (Lepidos-
  Since writing this, I hlve had opportunity to survey the sub-co.glomeratic coal measures of
Western Arkansas, and found their flora characterized by so-e peculiar species, but rich and
siaed. indeed. Newopteri Ae Ma and Fiabtlarie borasfolia are as abundant in the shales
below thW conglomerate et above



339

 

340        PAILONTOLOGICAL REPORT OP GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



trobi.) The lower part of the coal, which is soft and slaty, (brash coal,)
contains, besides the stems of Lepidodenclron, a few prints of Caktmites.
The coal itself; which is of a very black, hard, and beautiful appearance,
is mostly covered, in its horizontal sections, by thin layers of charcoal,
marked especially with prints of small branches of Lepidodendron.
  On Clear creek, in Bath county, the shales covering the coal are also
marked by leaves and the bark of the same species.
  By its fossil plants, the coal worked at Proctor might be referred to the
same sub-conglomeratic series. Unhappily, I could not carefully examine
it, being there prostrated by sickness. Mr. Downie, my able and efficient
assistant, found in the shales of McGuire's coal, a piece of bark of a
Lepidodendron, and some Lingula, with a Flabellaria.  These two last
species are generally characteristic of a higher coal; but such isolated
specimens are not sufficient for conclusive evidence. The Lingula uni-
bonata appears to have a wider range than was first supposed; and the
Flabellaria, although more abundant in the No. 1 B. coal above the con-
glomerate, is a plant of the sub-conglomerate coal also.
   These remarks on the characters of the sub-conglomeratic coal flora
are confirmed by the observations of Mr. J. Lesley, jr., who, from his
camp in Pulaski county, writes that he has only found, in the shales
below the conglomerate, these leaves of Lepidodendron, with some
prints which, from his sketch, evidently belong to scales of the cones of
Lepidodendron, viz.: to the genus Lepidophyllurn, of which two species
lave been figured in my former report.  (Pl. 7, fig. 7 and 8, vol. III,
Geol. Survey of Ky.)
   In a catalogue of the fossil plants of America, published by the Sci-
entific Association of Pottsville, I have described and figured a new
species of Pecopteria, (Pecopteis Sheeteri,) found in McKean county
by my friend, Prof P. W. Sheaffer, of Pottsville. The coal in the shales,
of which this species was found, is said to belong to the sub-conglomer-
atic measures. Except this plant, the shales which bear it do not show
any other remains but leaves and fruits of Lepidodendron.
   The specimens of shales collected in the Geological Survey of Arkan-
sas, under the direction of Dr. D. D. Owen, and which were submitted
to me for examination, are mostly covered with the same leaves above
mentioned. There is besides part of the frond of a fern related to
Alet pitda nervosa, but specifically different. Dr. Owen remarks, on

 

PALI"ONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



the Spadra coal, which, like all the other coals of Arkansas, belongs to
the sub-conglomeratic series, that some obscure stems, and long slender
leaves or glumes, of some plants can be discovered by splitting up th/e
s/lces.  These loug slender leaves are the leaves of the Lepidoden-
dron, and this observation confirms what I have before said about the
general appearance of the flora. Mr. E. T. Cox, Assistant Geologist in
the same survey, speaks of the coal strata in Crawford and Johnson
counties, Arkansas, as containing in their shales mostly Lepidodendron,
with Spkenopleris, Calamites, and Pinnularia.t    I have seen no
specimens of these last genera of plants in the shales examined, and do
not know whether there are any new species among them. These
remarks of Mr. Cox. who is very particular and careful in observations,
tend to show that the different beds of the lowest coal measures must
be characterized by some peculiar species.+
  I may mention here this curious coincidence. In the shales of the low
coal of North Carolina, of which some beds are intercalated in the old
red sandstone below the conglomerate, my friend Mr. J. P. Lesley found
specimens of a Lepidodendron which I had never seen, except in the red
shales below the conglomerate at Mauch Chunk and Pottsville, Pa.

    STRATIGRAPHY OF THE SUB-CONGLOMERATIC COAL MEASURES.
    The respective position of the coal beds below the conglomerate appears
to be as variable as their horizontal distribution.
   In the first report of the Geological Survey of Kentucky, Prof. D.
D. Owen gives a section of 227 feet, in which the place of the highest
coal is not fixed relatively to the conglomerate, but is shown to be 140
feet above the main coal of Proctor. On the same section are also
marked two coal beds 4 and 6 inches thick, at 35 and 40 feet below the
same main coal.
   Three miles south of Jas. Wills', near the eastern limits of Mont-
gomery county, a bed of coal 22 inches thick rests immediately upon a
soft, buff-colored sub-carboniferous sandstone, containing, in great abund-
ance, the shells of the Chemung group, and which, at this place. overlies
another bed of sandstone, covered mostly with Fucoides Cauda-Galli.
The coal is covered by 12 feet of black, soft shales, easily breaking,
   First Report Arkansas Survey, by D. D. Owen, p. 130.
  t Ibid P. 227 -230.
  J Vidt notw, p. 339.



341

 


42 PALEONTOLOGICAL REPORT OP GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



marked by the fossil plants mentioned before, and containing pebbles of
carbonate of iron. These pebbles are generally of the size of a com-
mon potato, having the same oblong form. From the top of these black
shales to the base of the conglomerate sandstone, there is yet a covered
space of 10 feet, which, according to the evidence of Mr. Wills, contains
a streak of coal 4 to 6 inches thick.
  In the hills just opposite the house of Mr. J. Wills, the formation con-
taining Fucoides Cazuda-Galli, about 100 feet thick, rests upon the lower
sub-division of the Chemung group, and is surmounted by a conglomer-
ate sandstone, containing here a great abundance of fossil shells, especially
pieces of Cyathophyllum, Cystyphyllum, etc. In these hills there is no
trace of coal or of limestone; but on the road to McCormick's, in cross-
ing the hills between Slate and Beaver creeks, three miles east of Mr.
Wills', the limestone makes its appearance with a stain of coal above it.
In this part of the country, viz.: on the limits of Powell, Montgomery,
and Morgan counties, the sub-carboniferous limestone is extremely vari-
able, either entirely wanting, or appearing here and there in strata from
6 inches to 25 feet thick. Just above the house of Mr. McCormick, on the
road to Hazlegreen, the limestone is seen succeeding the knob sandstone,
first, as a thin layer of a few inches, cherty, perforated, coarse-grained,
resembling a bastard limestone, then rapidly increasing in thickness to 15
feet, and becoming hard, fine-grained, and fossiliferous. It also supports
here a bed of coal from 12 to 22 inches, capped by 5 to 6 feet of black
shales, with the same plants as at Mr. Wills' coal. This coal, however,
is too full of stems of Lepidodendron, and its quality is very inferior.
The shales of this coal are overlaid by a ferruginous sandstone, proba-
bly a member of the conglomerate.
  On the head waters of Emmet's fork of Indian creek, five miles south
of McCormick's, the coal is 70 feet below the conglomerate, which forms
picturesque bluffs of from 150 to 200 feet high. The bed measures 15
inches of hard, fine, bituminous, block coal, underlaid by 6 inches of
shaly (brash) coal. The section is as follows:
                                                                   Feet.
Conglomerate --_-------                  -         ---------------- 150
Shyly ferr&iginou- sandstone --    ---------------------             55
Black shale, with carbonate of iron --_ _                         I
. r- d   co   i - -      - -- -- -- -- ---- -- ----- ----- ---- - -- ------ - ---- ---- - --  11   3'
Soft shaly coal -_------------------__-----------                6incheb.
Fire clay to level of the creek.
  The coal, equivalent of the former, on Clifton bank, one mile sout of



342

 

PAL.EONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



the road to Hazlegreen, is 22 inches thick. At Jas. Gibbles'; on the
head waters of Brush tbrk of Beaver creek, it is reported of the same
thickness; but I had no opportunity to examine it.
  Although the distance between the coal and the conglomerate is much
greater here than at Wills', I am satisfied that it is the same coal. Its
characters and the nature of the shales are the same; and as for the
measures below the conglomerate, we have already seen how variable they
prove. The bed of ferruginous sandstone, which is here superposed on
the shales, takes the place of conglomerate sandstone, or of millstone
grit.
  At the head waters of Clear creek, in Bath county, three miles above
the furnace, a coal, the equivalent of the former, has been worked, about
35 feet below the conglomerate. It is cut in two by four feet of black
shales, bearing the same characters as those intermediate to the two
coals of Mr. Wills. Its base was covered with mud and water, and I
could not see it well opened. It is reported by Prof. D. D. Owen, who
also visited it, as being 1 foot and 10 inches in its upper member.
   On Yocum creek, north fork of Licking, near the western limits of
Morgan county, a coal 4 inches thick crops out just at the base of the
conglomerate, without any shales above it; I consider it as the equiva-
lent of the upper coal of Mr. Wills, but being like the following, at the
level of the creek, the inferior strata were not exposed.
   On the road from Proctor to Hazelgreen, on Walker creek, and on
the property of L Bush, there is a bed of coal 8 to 10 inches thick,
which also crops out just at the base of the conglomerate, without inter-
mediate shales. The hard sandstone covering of this coal contains two
or three streaks of coal, one to two inches thick, running very irregu-
larly. These irregular streaks of coal are often remarked above the
coals immediately covered by sandstone, and are formed of detached
parts of the woody matter of the coal, rolled and imbedded in the sand
by waves or currents.'
   It is purposely that I have until now delayed to speak of the Casey-
ville low coal, of which the true position has been subject to, and is still
under discussion, among the geologists of the State Survey of Kentucky.
The coal under consideration, said to be 18 inches thick, was struck in a
   A coal in the same position, just below the conglomerate, is repored by Dr. D. D. Owen, in
Sb let volume of the Arkanas Surrey.



343

 


344        PATONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVET.



well near the old distillery, above Caseyville, at a depth of 70 or 80 feet
below Casey's coal bank, opened near by. When I visited the place in
18C7, in company with Mr. E. T. Cox, on my first tour of exploration,
I was shown only the shales of Mr. Casey's coal bank, and pronounced
them the equivalent of those of Bell's and Casey's coal veins. Last year,
having again visited the same place, with better information, I found
under a heap of rubbish dug from the well, some shales of this low coal
differing from those which cover Casey's and Bell's coal; they are soft,
breaking irregularly, very black, marked with a few leaves of Lepido-
dendron only, and mixed with a great abundance of oval pebbles of
carbonate of iron, like those mentioned in the black shales below the
conglomerate elsewhere. In fact, the characters of the shales found near
the mouth of the boiing of Mr. Casey's well, compare exactly with those
indicated in the description of the Wills and MeColmick coal.
  The presence of small pebbles of carbonate of iron in black shales, of
which the paleontology is not distinctly marked, would, no doubt, have
appeared unreliable and accidental, were it not supported by stratigraphi-
cal evidence. While I was investigating the question, in the vicinity of
Bell's mine, Mr. Wheatcroft, the director of the mines, informed me that
he had made many borings around Bell's vein, and had never found any
coal below it, except a seven inch bed at a depth of 103 feet.
  To place the matter beyond question, he showed me, about half a mile
from the entry of Bell's mine, in a small creek running into Tradewater
river, a bank of shales, with a coal at its base, exposing the lower part of
the measures, crossed in his different borings. The section is:
                                                                      Feet.
Fire clay and skaly sandstone under the Bell coal, extending downwards to top of the
bluff, (covered space) _-___-_____---
Hard, coarse sandstone in bank ____-_-_-_____-_____- _---- - -     16
Black shales, with pebbles of carbonate of iron _-_-___-__-_-_- ____-- - -   -- 40
Coal, bituminous and soft ___--_-- __--------     -      --            Y
Hard, black fire clay __----_--_----_-__-__-__-__-__-- - -------------  4
Yellow, shaly fire clay -                                           I
Fosuiliferous limestone, in bed of creek -___--_-___-___-___-_-_____-_-__-__-___  I
  Comparing this section with the place of the sub-conglomeratic coal
of Owsley, Montgomery, and Bath counties, the analogy of distribution
is striking, and when it is confirmed by palkeontological evidence, and
by the same mineral distribution, one can no longer question the identity
   No one is better acquainted with the geological strata of the country around Caseyville than
this gentleman, who haa been director of Bell's, Casey & Spigert's mines, and he asserts that,
from topographical and stratigraphical evidence, these veins are all equivalent to the Casey coal
epened above Caseyville.

 

PALLEONTOLOGICAL REPORT OF OEOLOGICAL SURVEY.



of the coal, found below the Bell's and Casey's mines, with the coals of the
sub-conglomeratic series.
   It is true that the 16 feet sandstone above the black shales is but a
thin substitute for the conglomerate; but near this western edge of the
coal fields the conglomeratic appearance of the san(stone has nearly
disappeared, and the thickness of the millstone grit is much reduced, and
extremely variable. Opposite Caseyville, on the Illinois shore, where
this millstone grit attains a good size, the distance from Dr. Long's coal,
which is above the millstone grit, to the battery rock coal, acknowledged
to be below it, is no more than 140 feet. In the vicinity of Mr. Wills',
in Montgomery county, on the edge of the eastern coal fields, in a space
of three miles, the diflbrence in the thickness of the conglomerate is at
some places, on the same line of strike, more than 100 feet.
   As for the bed of limestone below the coal, it has been looked upon,
by those who contradict the above opinion, as one of those thin strata of
limestone which are said to occasionally run within the thickness of the
millstone grit. But in that case, is the true millstone grit above or below
this limestone It' below, we should have at this place the abnormal
appearance of a limestone, which is not seen elsewhere. If above, we
must certainly have above the limestone the sub-conglomeratic coal,
equivalent to the coal 18 to 22 inches thick, resting immediately upon
the limestone at McCormick's, and reduced to its true proportion by the
gradual decreasing of the low coals towards the west.
  A difficulty occurs in accounting for the position of a thin coal, which
was seen in a boring by Mr. Sam'l Casey, 20 feet below his vein, worked
near the Tradewater river, and which coal is said to be 20 inches thick.
Unfortunately, when I visited the place the pit was entirely covered, and
I could find around it no traces of any shales or of coal. It is possible
that this coal might be a representative of our No. 1 A coal, generally
placed at 25 feet below No. 1 B, and which has been developed here
occasionally.  If so, it would be the only place where it has been
remarked in the whole extent of the western coal fields.
                         CONGLOMERATE.
  Along the edge of the western coal fields, the millstone grit, a coarse
sandstone, with or without pebbles, generally replaces the true conglom-
eratic formation. Its thickness does not appear to have been accurately
measured.  On the western edge, Mr. Lyon mentions it as being from
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346        PAILEONTOLOGICAL REPORT OP GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

50 to 100 feet thick. The different mqembers of the millstone grit
occupy, probably, the whole space between the sub-carboniferous lime-
stone and the lowest strata of what is generally called the base of the
coal measures.
  On the western edge of the eastern coal basin the formation is mostly
conglomeratic. Still, often in part replaced by a coarse and ferruginous
sandstone. Its thickness varies from '75 to 300 feet, attaining probably
its highest point in Owsley county, where Mr. J. Lesley, jr. measures it
at 300 feet, and at Rockcastle creek, where D. D. Owen found it to be
240 feet. Northward, viz.: in Greenup county, the conglomerate thins
out considerably, and nearly disappears even; as by the measurements
of Mr. L. Lyon, on Tigert's creek, six miles northwest of Grayson, the
distance from the top of the millstone grit to the sub-carboniferous
limestone is only 30 feet. These modifications are evidently local, and
cannot be considered as resulting from any general law of distribution.
From Greenup county northward, in fo