140 STUART WELLER 



underlying beds down to and including the Eureka shale. This 

 sandstone resembles, lithologically, the Sylamore sandstone of 

 Arkansas ; both formations carry fish remains and also numer- 

 ous black phosphatic nodules. 



Nortlivieiv sandstone and shale. — -In the older geological 

 reports these beds have been known as the Vermicular sandstone 

 and shales from the abundance of worm burrows which occur in 

 the sandstones. Shepard 1 has considered these beds to be 

 the equivalent of the Hannibal shales of the Mississippi River 

 section which are supposed to lie beneath the Chouteau lime- 

 stone, and he has so designated them in his report. These 

 beds in southwestern Missouri, however, are certainly not the 

 equivalent of the typical Hannibal shales, if the relationship of 

 that formation to the remainder of the Kinderhook series be 

 properly understood, and as they possess a characteristic indi- 

 viduality of their own throughout a considerable geographic 

 area, it seems advisable to designate the formation by a special 

 name. The sandstones of the formation are abundantly fossil- 

 iferous near Northview, in the western edge of Webster county, 

 and therefore this name is suggested for the formation. 



Shepard's investigations have shown that the formation has a 

 thickness ranging from ten to ninety feet. It is typically made 

 up of two members, a lower bluish shale and an upper fine- 

 grained yellowish sandstone. The two members of the forma- 

 tion grade from one into the other with no sharp line of separa- 

 tion, and one member is frequently thickened at the expense of 

 the other, the lower shale member being the most peristent. 



The fauna of this sandstone at Northview has been described 

 in detail in another place, 2 and contains the following species. 



i. Zaphrentis sp. undet. A few fragments of specimens of this genus 



have been observed. 

 2. Scalarituba missonriensis Weller. This is the name which has been 



applied to the worm borings which penetrate the sandstone in all 



directions. 



1 Loc. cit., p. 86. 



2 Kinderhook Faunal Studies. I. Fauna of the Vermicular Sandstone at North- 

 view, Webster county, Missouri. Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., Vol. IX, pp. 9-51. 



