84 
make him responsible for the ‘“ cut-logs and chips” reported 
to have been found in the Forest-bed. 
October 31st, 1870. 
The President in the chair. Fourteen Persons present. 
Pror, O. W. Morris presented a mass of brown sandstone 
full of Fossils from Colesville, Broome County, N. Y. 
THE PRESIDENT said that this specimen was from a 
stratum of the Hamilton period which is largely represented 
in this state and includes the Marcellus shales, the Hamilton 
formation and Genessee shales. Some of these rocks occur 
as thin limestone beds, which, where they are not exposed to 
the action of the weather are hard, compact rocks and then 
the fossils which they may contain are not readily distin- 
guishable. But, on exposure to the atmosphere, the Lime, of 
which they are for the most part made up, is acted upon by 
the Carbonic acid and thereby rendered soluble and washed 
away. The material of the fossils themselves seems to 
consist of a harder substance, which is less readily acted 
upon, therefore often remarkably perfect specimens are thus 
excavated through the weathering action and drop out. The 
specimen under consideration is one of the sandstones of this 
group and is almost entirely made up of individuals of 
Spirifer mucronatus, or rather casts of that Brachiopod as the 
material which constituted the shell is entirely removed 
leaving cavities to represent it, and which exhibit the 
beautiful sculpture of the Spirifer in a remarkably fine 
manner. 
With regard to the rocks belonging to this group, the 
flagging stones of our streets come from a thin layer belong- 
ing to the Hamilton epoch. At one point in the state, east 
of the centre, these rocks attain to a thickness of about 1200 
feet and extend to the south-west into Pennsylvania and 
