small hamlet in each, we descended into the valley of Karditch at three and a half hours from Kosloo.
In our descent on the east side of it we came upon the coal- bearing beds, dipping to the S.W. at angles of 40° and 50°, and at about three miles from the coast. We had also seen coal-seams in the other valleys we had crossed, but situated nearer the sea.
To the southward of Karditch masses of limestone appeared on both sides of the valley, with the coal-bearing deposits, apparently dipping under them. But as these latter deposits were inclined at all angles, sometimes the relative superposition of these beds was not identifiable without a more perfect examination. Considerable local disturbances seemed to exist here, as the result of proximate volcanic action; a dyke of igneous rock, although somewhat resembling an altered shale, seemed to form the crest of the ridge near the village of Karditch, and dipped at an angle of 60° and upwards S.W. and S.S.W.
To the westward of Karditch we crossed several valleys leading to the coast, in which coal existed. In one of these, near the village of Aliagazzi, there were two seams, now being worked by Croat squatters, the dip of one of which seams was as much as 70°.
At another valley and village called Arnout-keni, there was a seam of good coal, between 8 and 10 feet thick, that had not yet been worked.
In all these valleys and intervening ridges I found that the Coal- seams and associated shales, &c. represented a series of anticlinally and synclinally disposed undulations of the beds, indicative of great lateral as well as local pressure and disturbance, the anticlinal summits of these flexures having been considerably denuded of the continuing strata.
The view to the southward, over these parallel ridges, where attainable on our route, from being for the most part clothed with dense forests of oak, beech, and wild fruit-trees, and from being devoid of any conspicuous peak or mountain until nearer Erekli, resembled the broad waves of the ocean, and were in unexplored beauty—in apparently primeval condition.
In this part, and also near Erekli, we found the shales over which the road passed much decomposed and soft, as well as showing metamorphic action from volcanic influence, the focus of which seems to be at or near Erekli, as I shall show by a brief description of the locality, which I was enabled to examine during the two following days, before my return to Constantinople; for as Erekli was the depot to which the coal was sent from the localities at which it was procured along the coast, chiefly in small coasters, for transhipment to Constantinople in vessels of larger burden, it became important that my Report should be accompanied by a survey of the only secure anchorage near the Coal-bearing district.
