Towards the end of March 1854, after the combined fleets of England and France had entered the Black Sea, as coal was known to be procured by the Turkish Government from the south coast, near Erekli (the ancient Heraclea), I was ordered to proceed there, and examine and report upon its quality and fitness for the use of war-steamers; for although two or three cargoes of the coal were seen at Constantinople by some naval engineers, the quality appeared to be so inferior as coal (from being so mixed with slate and rubbish), that a general opinion prevailed that it was only a better quality of lignite than that procured from the Tertiary deposits of the Sea of Marmora and the Archipelago.
It was therefore of first importance to ascertain the age of the Erekli coal-beds, as well as the quantity that could be procured from them with sufficient economy and of sufficiently good quality for the use of our war-ships for steaming at high speeds.
I could obtain no fragment of a fossil from the coal at Constantinople that I examined, nor any information regarding the deposits associated with them; for, although M. Tchihatcheff had shown that rocks of the Devonian age existed, no mention was made of these coal-deposits or of any Carboniferous strata in the neighbourhood, in his valuable work on Asia Minor, published in 1853. I now find, however, that M. Schlehan had, in the 'Zeitschrift der deutschen geologischen Gesellschaft' for 1852, given a full description of some patches of Carboniferous deposits that had recently been examined by him near Amasny, and from which he gives a list of seven genera of Carboniferous plants.
I also find that M. Tchihatcheff, in his description of Asia Mino published in 1867, has noticed M. Schlehan's account of these Carboniferous strata at Amasny, and has also given a list of fossils sent him by Mr. Barkley from the coal-beds at Kosloo, as he had not been able to visit the district.
Leaving Constantinople in H.M. ship 'Spitfire,' then under my command, on the evening of March 27th, I passed Erekli the following morning, and proceeded at once, as the weather was favourable, to the bay and valley of Kosloo, about thirty miles further to the eastward, where the coal was being worked for the Turkish Government under the direction of an English engineer, Mr. John Barkley.
Steaming thus along this open coast between Erekli and Kosloo, I saw that a succession of narrow valleys, confined between narrow
