BEENAEDSTON SEEIES OF UPPEE DEVONIAN. 257 



In his matui-ed conclusions (17, p. 428 ff) the yiK-issoid rocks which 

 in the Vermont report are stated to appear to pass iraperce])tibly into the 

 quartzites, and to rest invariably upon them, and therefore to be newer 

 (12, Vol. II, p. 598), are classified as Bethlehem gneiss, and thus assigned 

 to the Laurentian. The band of this gneissoid rock crossing the State 

 line west of South Vernon is marked on the map (17, PI. XVIII) as 

 Bethlehem, but in the atlas to the same volume, prepared later, it is colored 

 as Coos quartzite, but left in the section at the foot of the sheet as gneiss. 



The hornblende-schist is next described, and its extension southward 

 through Gill pointed out, and it is referred to the same horizon as the 

 Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, band, and both are assigned on the scale 

 of colors of the map to a position below the Huronian. The argillite is 

 described as Cambrian clay-slate — that is, as Primordial Silurian. 



The remainder of the series on both sides of Fall River and east of 

 the Connecticut through Northfield — quartzite, mica-schist, and staurolite- 

 slate — is assigned to the Coos group, and this is placed, in the stratigraph- 

 ical column at the end of the book, beneath the calciferous mica- schist, 

 and to the whole is given a position in the Paleozoic series above the 

 Cambrian and below the Lower Helderberg. 



Professor Hitchcock calls attention to one very important matter — the 

 absence of staurolite, hornblende rocks, and feldspathic quartzite from the 

 Williams farm section, and their presence, with the absence of limestone, 

 on the other side of the narrow Fall River Valley. In his final column of 

 the rocks of the State (17, p. 674) a thickness of 500 feet is assigned to 

 the Helderberg, which is not clear if only the limestone is to be assigned 

 to that age. 



During the same summer I ^'isited this region with Professor Dana and 

 we went over the ground between Beruardston and South Vernon together, 

 examining the Williams farm section carefully. I then called his attention 

 to the lower stratum of schist beneath the limestone, and soon after detected 

 fossils in the quartzite over the latter. These we found to be quite abund- 

 ant. On his return Professor Dana gave the results of this examination 

 and controverted the conclusions of Professor Hitchcock in a somewhat 

 polemical paper (18), giving in some detail the earlier opinions of the 

 latter, and deciding that, since the quartzite was both fossiliferous and 

 conformable upon the limestone, the two could not be brought into their 



MON XXIX 17 



