340 



blue, and black shales and slates, with a few beds of limestones 

 and conglomerates ; they exhibit none of the massive compact 

 character of the lower rocks, and are generally unfit for building 

 purposes. It is to these various colored shales that the fossils of 

 the Connecticut Valley are wholly confined ; so far as he knows, 

 not a single well characterized organic remain has ever been 

 discovered in the lower beds. 



The fossils peculiar to these upper beds are the well known 

 impressions of the feet of birds; several varieties of fish in con- 

 siderable abundance ; impressions of stems, leaves, and grasses; 

 coprolites, and numerous organic remains of a doubtful charac- 

 ter ; and, in at least two instances, bones of large vertebrata, (at 

 East Windsor, Ct. and South Hadley, Mass.) He thinks that 

 this limitation of the fossils to the upper beds, and the different 

 lithological characters, warrant the conclusion that the upper 

 members of the Connecticut River Sandstones are of an entirely 

 different age from the lower. Throwing aside the general 

 lithological resemblances existing between these rocks and the 

 European new Red, and the Sandstones of the South Eastern 

 States, there is no more reason for referring them to the new 

 red Sandstone than to the Sandstones of the Silurian period. 



At a point six or eight miles west of Springfield, he discovered 

 the shales and slates of the upper beds resting unconformably 

 upon the lower* Sandstones. The lower rocks, so far as 

 observed, stood at an angle of 70° to 80°, and even 90°, while 

 the upper beds had only an inclination of about 10° east. The 

 upper rocks in this vicinity appear to be made up entirely of 

 tidal deposits, or of the sediment left by the successive risings of 

 a river overflowing a low, flat country ; since they are composed 

 of innumerable parallel layers, readily splitting by the pressure 

 of the hand, and rarely exceeding the tenth of an inch in thick- 

 ness. Each of these strata also exhibits upon its surface irreg- 

 ular markings, which generally extend through the plate ; it is 

 very evident that these marks are merely mud cracks, filled up 

 by a subsequent deposition ; in fact, more conclusive evidence of 

 repeated submergence and exposure could not be produced. 



Do these Sandstones belong to the upper members of the 

 Triasic period, or to the Lias? He thinks there are objections 

 to referring them to the former period, which do not apply to the 



