Fish Beds and a Fossil Foot Mark in New Jersey. 



135 



as "a thin bed of gray siliceous slate, very schistose," and, with 

 the other rocks, dipping conformably " to the northwest"* 



I have since visited this locality and obtained seven species of 

 ichthyoiites, all of the genus Palseoniscus. Three of these, viz. 



p-f* 



P. Agassizii, are common also to ail 



Some of the 



the fish-beds of this formation in New England, 

 remaining species seem nearly allied to Palceonisci of the mag- 

 nesian limestone, in the New Red group of England; as ap- 

 pears from specimens sent me by Sir Philip Egerton, as well as 

 from those which are figured in the Poissons Fossiles of Agassiz. 

 The genus Catopterus, which is common at Boon ton as well as 

 in Connecticut, has not been found at Pompton. Of the several 

 species which belong to the Connecticut localities no less than 

 eight are found at Boonton; which comprise nearly the whole 

 series, in both cases. 



The ravine in which Mr. Ryerson's quarries are situated ex- 

 hibits a good section of this part of the formation ; the rocks 

 being here exposed for several hundred feet in thickness, in the 

 order of superposition. In passing up this ravine, we arrive at 

 another thin bed of bituminous shale which dips perhaps two 

 hundred feet below the fish stratum above described. A short 

 examination of this inferior bed sufficed to show that it also con- 

 tains ichthyoiites; a specimen having been fortunately obtained, 

 as I was on the point of leaving the ground. This is the first 

 instance, perhaps, in which a plurality of fish beds, in the order 

 of stratification, has been distinctly observed in the red sand- 

 stone formation of this country. 



a a Red Sandstone, b b Fish Beds. c Calcareous Conglomerate. 



d Drift, e e Quarries. 



While examining the sandstone quarries, which lie between 

 the two beds of shale noticed above, I was fortunate enough to 

 discover and obtain a well characterized foot print. This ich- 

 nolite belongs to a species which is found in the sandstone rocks 

 about Middletown, in Connecticut. The specimen is in relief j 



* See the final Report of Professor Rogers on the Geology of New Jersey, p. 

 125, et seq. * 



