67 



formation. These striking beds form more or less conspicuous ranges of 

 hills in the lowland area just west of the Blue Ridge and corresponding 

 mountain ranges to the north and south of Maryland. Weathering of 

 these red to purple strata results in similarly colored soils which there- 

 fore contrast strongly with the grayish-brown and black soils of adjacent 

 limestone areas. 



NAME AND SYNONYMY. In publications upon the central and northern 

 part of the Appalachian Valley the red zone mentioned above was fre- 

 quently noted, especially in folios of the United States Geological Survey, 

 but it was not separated as a distinct formation until 1905 * when 

 H. D. Campbell proposed the name Buena Vista shale for corresponding 

 red beds in central western Virginia. Later Stose 2 discriminated similar 

 sandstones and shales in southern Pennsylvania as the Waynesboro forma- 

 tion, the typical development of which extends southwestward from 

 Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, into Maryland, where its outcrops form the 

 " peach lands " in the valley west of the Blue Eidge slope. The formation 

 here being the same in general character and sequence of beds as in 

 Pennsylvania it is manifestly desirable to use the same name for it in both 

 states. It is not yet finally decided whether this name should be the one 

 proposed by Stose or some other. Regarding the term, Buena Vista, it 

 cannot be used in this connection because the same name had been given 

 many years before to rocks in Ohio. Among several probably synonymous 

 terms that have been considered, the name Wautaga shale, proposed in 

 1903 by Keith, 3 for series of red and green shales' in east Tennessee, occu- 

 pying apparently the same stratigraphic position as the Maryland forma- 

 tion under consideration, is perhaps the most appropriate designation. 

 According to Keith the Wautaga shale has been traced far enough north- 

 ward to warrant the application of this rame in west central Virginia in 

 place of the preoccupied term Buena Vista; and there may be sufficient 

 reason for its extension to Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. How- 

 ever, the lithologic development of this northern f acies of the Appalachian 



1 Amer. Jour. Sci., vol. xx, 1905, pp. 445-447. 



2 Folio 170, U. S. Geol. Surv., 1910. 



3 Cranberry folio, No. 90, U. S. Geological Survey, 1903. 



