1894.] * [Lyman. 



clear indications. Prof. William ]\I. Fontaine may have been guided by 

 equally clear indications, but his expressed argument does not seem per- 

 fectly sound when he says of a "New Red" fossil described and figured 

 by Emmons as a Lepidodendron, and without pointing out what else it 

 is: "These impressions are, of course, not those of Lepidodendron, as 

 this plant does not exist in the Mesozoic." That would decidedly seem 

 to be begging the question as to the age of the fossil. Newberry appears 

 also to have been possii'ly influenced l)y the same assumption. 



In has, in fact, been generally, but perhaps too superficially, assumed 

 from the predominance mainly of a red color, and the absence of notable 

 unconformities in the beds of the so-called New Red, and the lack of 

 numerous convenient fossil indications, that the beds all belonged to one 

 formation of no wide paleontological range, and consequently of no very 

 great thickness. Now that our Pennsylvania investigations prove be- 

 yond a doubt that tlie total thickness is at least some twenty-seven thou- 

 sand feet, the presumption is rather that the beds should be of very diverse 

 geological age ; and even it should not seem surprising if the lower ones, 

 including the Newark brownstone, should prove to be of Paleozoic age. 



Lesquereux's very positive, unhesitating recognition of the Lepidoden- 

 dron would of itself make it highly probable that the brownstone was at 

 least as old as the Carboniferous ; and somewhat confirmatory wholly in- 

 dependent fossil evidence has been found in Pennsylvania. Several j-ears 

 ago Mr. S. E. Paschall, of Doylestown, pointed out to Prof. Henry Car- 

 vill Lewis certain calamite fossils that had been found by Mr. John S. 

 Ash half a dozen miles easterly from Doylestown, just north of the old 

 Paleozoic island, so to speak, and within the limits of the supposed Meso- 

 zoic, and now known to be a couple of thousand feet geologically below 

 the brownstone beds. Lewis thought the calamite might be of Permian 

 age. With much search Mr. Ash succeeded in finding a specimen that 

 contained two joints with the whole internode, tome twelve or fifteen 

 inches long, and some eight inches or more broad, and it was sent to Les- 

 quereux for identification. Other affairs through the short remainder of 

 his busy life prevented Lesqucreux from communicating any result of his 

 examination, and the specimen has not yet been recovered. But Mr. 

 Paschall has a less perfect fragment ten inches long, indicating a calamite 

 of at least six inches in breadth, with a single joint at two inches from 

 one end. He says there are other better specimens at the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences. 



The only two recorded fossils, both plants, that have been supposed to 

 be identified beyond doubt, from the Newark quarries, are the Dioouites 

 long if olius and CliUhropterlx plati/phi/lla, mentioned by Newberrj' in his 

 Monograph xiv, of the U. S. Geological Survey, on "The Fossil Fishes 

 and Fossil Plants of the Triassic Rocks," etc., 1888. pp. 92 and 94. Fon- 

 taine speaks of the Dio'oiiites lonjifolius among the North Carolina fossils, 

 U. jS. Geological Survey, Monograph vi, 1883, p. Ill, judging merely by a 

 description and figure of Emmons', as probably nearly allied to Zamites 



