Jan., 1914.] Richmond Beds of the Cincinnati Group. 229 



THE UPPER RICHMOND BEDS OF THE CINCINNATI 



GROUP. 



W. H. Shideler. 



Perhaps more geologists, amateur and professional, have been 

 developed upon the Cincinnati arch than in any other region in 

 America. Yet the fact that the beds known as the Saluda have 

 been classed sometimes as occurring beneath the Whitewater beds, 

 and sometimes as above, shows that the Cincinnati stratigraphy 

 is not yet a closed question. 



With the hope of determining the exact relationships of the 

 Upper Richmond beds, the field seasons of 1912 and 1913 were 

 spent in studying the upper strata of the northern half of the 

 Cincinnati anticline. The second season's work was made pos- 

 sible by a grant from the Emerson McMillin research fund of 

 the Ohio Academy of Science. 



The subdivisions of the Richmond in ascending order have 

 been usually given as Waynesville, or Lower Richmond, Liberty, 

 or Middle Richmond, and Sakida, Whitewater and Elkhom, 

 constituting the Upper Richmond. We are not concerned here' 

 at all with the Waynesville, and but little with the Liberty. 



Of these subdivisions, the Saluda beds were the first to be- 

 defined*, and were originally termed Madison, from the typical 

 locality at Madison, Ind. But the name being preoccupied,. 

 Saluda was substituted. 



These Saluda beds at Madison consist of massive, often decid- 

 edly arenaceous or argillaceous limestones which have no parallel 

 elsewhere in the northern half of the Cincinnati arch. These- 

 heavy strata are of a prevailing grayish color, sometimes bluish or 

 brownish, but weather to various shades of brown. In texture, 

 the rock is smooth-grained and non-crystalline, and except at the 

 top is almost entirely barren of fossils. 



The "typical Saluda" of Foerste was given a thickness of 37',, 

 being based at the top of 3' of sandy limestones just above the top 

 of a conspicuous 2' reef of the coral Columnaria alveolota. 6' below 

 the base of this reef is the top of another Columnaria reef, 1' thick. 

 Cumings includes both reefs in his Saludaf and identifies the lower 

 one with the reef as the base of the Saluda farther north. But, 

 as will be presently shown, it is the upper reef, not the lower, that 

 extends toward the north and north-east. Hence it seems best 

 here to consider the top reef as the base of the Saluda. 



*Foerste, Indiana Dept. Geol. & Nat. Resources, 21st Ann. Rent., 1896, 

 p. 220. 



flndiana Dept. Geol. & Nat. Resources, 32nd Ann. Rept., 1907, p. 640. 



