﻿202 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



is reported that this railroad has spent upward of $2,000,000 in this 

 quarry alone during the last three years. The great amount of work 

 thus represented has made it possible to obtain a new and unique 

 Manlius fauna. In the quarry in question the strata stand nearly 

 vertical ; as the shaly cystid zone is deeply decomposed, most of it 

 had to be carted away as of no value to the railroad. This material, 

 however, proved of great interest to the paleontologist. Unfortu- 

 nately all the refuse from this great quarry is thrown together ; other- 

 wise an abundance of fine cystids might be obtained from these 

 dumps for years to come. 



Soon after the quarry was opened, Messrs. Robert H. Gordon and 

 Frank Hartley, of Cumberland, Maryland, in collecting here, began 

 to find excellent brachiopods and some cystids. After a few Sphcero- 

 cystites had been obtained by Mr. Hartley, he interested the foreman, 

 Mr. Joseph Gambino, and the gang of Italian laborers by showing 

 them the specimens and offering to purchase any material found. 

 He little dreamed that a few weeks later he would be offered a quart 

 of these cystids, yet on each succeeding visit during the first year he 

 obtained a like quantity. This activity on the part of these Cumber- 

 land collectors and the quarrymen yielded more than five thousand 

 cystids, all of which have passed through the writer's hands. Such 

 wholesale collecting undoubtedly explains why so many species have 

 been found. With the cystids occur about ten species of crinoids, 

 but these are always rare and none is known to be- represented by 

 more than five specimens. Other associated fossils are bryozoa and 

 a few species of brachiopods. 



Nearly all the specimens from the cystid layers in the Keyser 

 quarries are uninteresting when picked up, because of the firm adher- 

 ence of the shale, structural details thus being obscured. Weathering 

 does not improve these fossils, as they are not completely siliceous, 

 and all must be cleaned with potash to reveal their beautiful detail. 

 For the benefit of those unacquainted with this method of preparing 

 specimens for the cabinet or for study, the following extract, taken 

 from Directions for Collecting and Preparing Fossils 1 is here added: 



" To remove hard clay from the calyxes of corals or the interior of 

 shells and other objects, caustic potash is often very serviceable. 

 Fossils cleaned in this way, however, must be solid and without 

 cracks, for the potash will penetrate into the minutest fracture and 

 force the parts asunder. 'Caustic potash' comes in [purified] round, 

 slender sticks sealed in one-half and one-pound bottles. Keep the 

 potash sealed in the bottles with paraffin and cork stoppers. Handle 



'Schuchert, Bull. 39, U. S. Nat. Mus., Pt. K, 1895. 



