1882,] ^yO [White. 



Cheat river has a striking stratigraphical resemblance to the "Cuyalioga 

 series " in Western Pennsylvania, a shale interval at top and bottom with 

 an intervening sandstone interval — Shenango — Sharpsville Lower — of 

 practically the same thickness in each case. The query here suggested is, 

 can the " Mauch Chunk shale" interval, 300' thick on Cheat river in Mo- 

 nongalia and Preston counties, be identical with the "Cuyciho(ja shale" 

 series as given above from the Ohio line counties in Pennsylvania ? The 

 answer is yet quite doubtful, but the only evidence obtained at present, 

 seems to point to an affirmative reply. 



Stratigraphy gives an answer decidedly in the affirmative, for the suc- 

 cession in each case is practically the same, and yet we must not forget 

 that the nearest points to which the series have been traced — mouths of 

 Beaver and Cheat rivers— are separated by some 60 miles, in which these 

 beds are buried from sight by the overlying Coal Measures. It should be 

 stated, however, that the lithology of the 165' sandstone series on Cheat 

 river is often strikingly like tliat of the Slmrpsnille heels in Pennsj'lvania, 

 and also that it sometimes contains, near its top, a massive brown sand- 

 stone that would correlate well with the Bhenango SS. 



But what say the fossils to this supposed parallelism ? 



On Cheat the "Mauch Chunk beds" are. not fossiliferous, so that we can- 

 not compare them directly in this respect. 



The " Cuyahoga" beds are often quite fossiliferous, however, and the 

 evidence that they furnish is curious, as showing an apparent contradic- 

 tion in the answer to our query given by two classes of organisms — Mol- 

 lusks and Fishes. 



The Meadmlle limestones in the "Cuyahoga" beds are, in Crawford coun- 

 ty, filled with remains of fishes, scales, bones, teeth, dermal structures, &c., 

 and in the Spring of 1880 I sent some of these fossils to Prof. Worthen, 

 the eminent PaliQthyologist of Illinois, for his opinion as to their geologi- 

 cal horizon. He replied that they seemed to him to belong txnquestionably 

 with the fish beds of the Chester limestone at the west, and I should add 

 that this remark of Prof. Worthen first suggested to me the possibility of 

 an identity between the " Maucli Chunk shales " of Cheat river, and the 

 "Cuyahoga" series. 



The Molluscan reraains found in the " Cuyalioga " series, however, seem 

 to ally them more closely with the Waverly sandstones (Pocono), which 

 itnderlie the shales and limestones of No. XI, and in my Report on Craw- 

 ford and Erie preference was given to their side of the story. It now 

 seems possible, as suggested above, that the testimony of the Fishes may 

 yet have to be received in preference to that of their more lowly cousins, 

 the mollusks, and the '•' Cuyahoga shales" of Newberry, relegated to the 

 horizon of No. XI, where they were long ago placed by Prof. Lesley on 

 general stratigraphical grounds (see his scheme of Ohio and Pennsylva- 

 nia formations correlated in Report I, 2nd Geo'l Sur. Pa.). 



The apparent contradiction in the evidence given by the two classes of 



