EARLY DEVON IC HISTORY OF NEW YORK AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA 55 



The material of the boulders is a very fine grained sandstone, or sometimes 

 compact quartz rock, enabled to resist decomposition easily by its great 

 toughness. So few fossils from other rocks may be found in boulders in 

 the settled counties, that persons who find any fossils in their fields in loose 

 fragments of rock, may be sure that they came from this belt of Oriskany 

 sandstone. 



Dr Jackson first pointed out the existence of this belt of fossiliferous 

 rocks, without defining its position more definitely than the "Transition 

 series," an old term nearly equivalent to the modern term Paleozoic. He 

 discovered a fine locality of the fossils near Parlin Pond, in No. 3, R. 7, of 

 Somerset county. The township is now called Parlin Pond. The following 

 is his account of it : " Between Jackman's and Boise's farms, on the side 

 of the [Canada] road, half a mile north of Parlin Pond, I discovered a huge 

 bed of fine grauwacke, (a sandstone with argillaceous or talcose cement) 

 filled with an immense number and variety of fossil shell impressions. The 

 rock is of a fine siliceous variety, extremely compact where the shells do not 

 abound, but presenting the most perfect casts of marine shells that I have 

 ever seen. The width of the bed could not be exactly determined, as it is 

 in part concealed by the soil ; but I measured it for 50 rods, which is but a 

 small part of its width. Among the fossils I obtained the following genera : 

 terebratulae, spiriferae, lutrunae and turritellae, beside which there are sev- 

 eral other indistinct or broken fossils, which it is more difficult to determine. 

 From the direction of this rock, it evidently crosses Moose river and the 

 head of Moosehead lake, and extends to the banks of the Aroostook [river], 

 where we discovered it last year, and from it came all these numerous 

 boulders and erratic blocks containing fossil shells, which we find scattered 

 so profusely over the country, from the line above mentioned, to the outer 

 islands of the Penobscot bay, and at the mouth of the Kennebec river." 



Fossils from Parlin Pond and Moosehead lake were examined by Mr 

 Billings, who reported as follows respecting them : 



"The fossils from Parlin Pond belong to the followingf o-enera : 

 Strophomena, Chonetes, Orthis, Rhynchonella, Rensselaeria, Leptocoelia, 

 Spirifera, Modiolopsis, Cyrtodonta, Avicula, Murchisonia, Platyostoma, 

 Orthoceras. The rocks are Lower Devonic, about the age of the Oriskany 

 sandstone. The following are either identical or closely allied to Oriskany 

 sandstone species : 



Strophomena magnifica * Rensselaeria ovoides 



Orthis musculosa Leptocoelia flabellites 



Rhynchonella oblata * Spirifera arrecta* 



Spirifera pyxeidata* 



Those marked with an asterisk are considered to be either identical 

 or closely allied species. Those not so marked are identical. The rocks 

 at Moosehead lake are of the same age as the above. Leptocoelia 



