Weller — Kinderhook Faunal Studies. 63 



on comparisons with the type specimens, and are evidently 

 erroneous in some cases. 



In all the work which has been done in the past, on the 

 Kinderhook fossils at Burlington, little or no effort has been 

 made to assign the species to their definite stratigraphic posi- 

 tions in the section. It has usually been deemed sufficient to 

 refer a species to the " Yellow Sandstone, Burlington, Iowa," 

 ignoring the fact that there are two yellow sandstones in the 

 Kinderhook at that place, whose faunas are almost entirely 

 distinct, there being only a small number of species common 

 to the two beds. The fauna of the oolite bed can be more 

 easily recognized from the literature, but even the fossils from 

 this well marked horizon have often been recorded simply as 

 coming from the '* Kinderhook beds, Burlington, Iowa." 



In the White collection most of the specimens are marked 

 with a number indicating the bed from which they came, and 

 a careful study of that collection supplemented by an exam- 

 ination of the faunas in the field and of material kindly loaned 

 by Prof. Calvin, leads to the recognition of at least four dis- 

 tinct faunal zones in the section in which fossils are abundant, 

 and three other zones in which the fossils are less abundant 

 but which still possess their own faunal characteristics. These 

 seven faunal zones correspond with the seven beds recognized 

 by the writer in the section. 



The fauna described in the present paper is that of bed 

 No. 2 (Weller). This is the lower one of the two yellow 

 sandstone horizons, and it contains the most prolific fauna in 

 the whole section. It is characterized by multitudes of indi- 

 viduals of Chonopeclus fischeri (W. and P.), and for this 

 reason the sandstone will be designated as the Chonopectus 

 sandstone. Usually this bed is a soft, friable, yellow grit or 

 fine sandstone, in which the fossils are always preserved as 

 casts, though in many cases the cavities left after the solution 

 of the shell, have been closed by pressure. At one locality 

 on Flint River, this bed is represented by a highly f ossifer- 

 ous, much harder, blue sandstone, which has weathered along 

 the joints into a soft yellow rock with characters similar to 

 the usual exposures of the bed. From this occurrence it 

 seems possible that the softness and yellow color of the bed 



