222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.41. 



Proceeding south along the west side of the Nashville dome, the 

 Fort Payne chert rests either upon the Ridgetop shale or upon some 

 lower formation. I am aware of no instance in which the New 

 Providence formation forms a part of the section. However, it is 

 possible that more field work will show deposits in embayments 

 similar to the one at Whites Creek, along the west and south sides of 

 the dome. Safford mentions crinoidal limestone in the lower part 

 of his Siliceous Group at several localities in addition to Whites Creek, 

 and these possibly may prove to be of New Providence age. 



CORRELATION. 



In the accompanying correlation table I have endeavored to 

 arrange the Waverlyan and early Tennesseean formations according 

 to the available facts. As Schuchert, in his " Paleogeography of 

 North America."^ has presented a more comprehensive table cover- 

 ing the Waverlyan, or, as he terms it, the Mississippic, I need only 

 call attention to the points in which my own table differs. In the 

 column devoted to the general time units it will be noted that the 

 Kinderhookian does not include the early Waverlyan black shales, 

 and that these are placed as a part of an unnamed series. The 

 Kinderhook never did include these shales, and it would be an 

 unwarranted extension of the series term to make it embrace them. 

 Moreover, these black shales represent a definite time period of pre- 

 Kinderhookian and post-Devonian age, and distinct diastrophic 

 history. In the same column the Glen Park is placed, not below, but 

 above the Louisiana, a position which I determined some years ago 

 in sections at Hamburg, Illinois. The placing of the New Providence 

 under the Burlington at the base of the Osagian is a provisional 

 arrangement, smce the close relations to the Lower Burlington are 

 appreciated, and the possibility of their partial equivalence is recog- 

 nized. A correlation which is made, however, without reserve, is 

 the exact equivalence of the New Providence and the Fern Glen 

 formations. Weller, in his Kinderhook Faunal Studies ^ writes as 

 follows : 



Although our knowledge of this basal Knobstone fauna is incomplete, the evidence 

 available seems to indicate that a reasonably close correlation between it and the 

 Fern Glen fauna can be made. 



Mr. Springer's study of the echinoderms strengthens this view, and 

 the occurrence of numerous other Fern Glen fossils in the Tennessee 

 strata here termed New Providence, is thought to establish the 

 correctness of this correlation. The reasons for the adoption and 

 correlation of the other formational names under discussion have 

 been stated in the preceding remarks. 



1 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. 20, 1910, p. 548. 



2 The Fauna of the Fern Glen Formation, Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 20, 1909, pp. 265-332, 



