Geological Problems in Muscatine County. 9 



does not contain a single specimen of Spirifcra capax. Never- 

 theless Hall regards the Burlington sandstone as the equivalent 

 of the spirifer-bearing sandstone of Muscatine county, and re- 

 fers it likewise to the age of the Chemung Group of New 

 York.' 



Thus matters stood until Meek and Worthen, in a paper on the 

 Goniatite limestone of Rockford, Indiana," proposed the name 

 Kinder/look Group to include, not only the Goniatite beds in 

 question, but the yellow sandstone at Burlington and all the 

 equivalent strata of the Mississippi Valley that had previously 

 been referred to the an-e of the Chemuncr. Furthermore a 

 studv of the Kinderhook fauna at Burlincrton, near the town 

 of Kinderhook in Illinois, at Rockford, Indiana, and at other 

 localities where the formation is typically developed, showed 

 that the Kinderhook Group is not onl}- not Chemung, that it 

 is not Devonian at all, but that it is related to the strata above 

 it rather than to those below it, and must therefore be trans- 

 ferred to the Carboniferous series. Accordingly Meek and 

 Worthen in their reports on the geology of Illinois,^ have 

 placed the Kinderhook Group, including the yellow sandstone 

 at Burlington, at the base of the Sub-carboniferous. The 

 conclusions of Meek and Worthen are justified b}- the total 

 absence of Devonian species from the beds of the Kinder- 

 hook. Even such wide-spread Devonian genera as Atrypa, 

 Strophodonta, Acervularia, etc., are conspicuously absent. 

 On the other hand the Crinoids and Fishes, as well as the 

 Productid^ among the brachiopods, all impart to the Kinder- 

 hook fauna an unmistakable Carboniferous fades. 



Dr. C. A. White follows Meek and Worthen in referring the 

 sandstones at Burlino-ton to the Carboniferous instead of the 

 Devonian,' Without quoting authorities farther it may be 

 assumed that all competent geologists are now in accord as to 



1 Hall's Geology of Iowa, Vol. I, part i, p. 89 et. seq. 



2 Am. Jour. Science, Vol. XXXII, No. 95, Sept. 1861. 



3 Geological Survey of Illinois, Vols. I-VII. See particularly Vol. I, pp- 

 44 and 118. 



4 White's Geology of Iowa, 1870, Vol. I, p. 1S9. 



