NOTES ON THE RANGE AND DISTRIBUTION OF 

 RETICULARIA LAEVIS' 



E. M. KINDLE 



Progress in stratigraphic paleontology in recent years has been 

 largely along the line of increasing our knowledge of the range and 

 distribution of faunas and of the individual species composing them. 

 The important bearing of this class of knowledge upon questions 

 concerning the evolution and dispersal of faunas is evident. Its 

 interest to the general geologist lies chiefly in the fact that the 

 accuracy with which fossils can be used in correlation is in direct 

 proportion to the completeness of our knowledge of their range. 



The rapid growth of stratigraphic paleontology during the last 

 two decades, as compared with preceding decades, is illustrated in 

 the history of the development of our knowledge concerning the dis- 

 tribution and range of Reticularia laevis, a well-known Devonian 

 brachiopod. For nearly forty years after it had been described 

 practically nothing was added to the information concerning its dis- 

 tribution and range given by Hall at the time of its description. In 

 1881 Williams wrote: " Only a few localities are known in which this 

 large fossil is found, and, so far as I can learn, none outside of the 

 state" (New York).^ Its vertical range was then supposed to be 

 limited to about 3 feet^ of strata. During the twenty years which 

 have elapsed since this was written the distribution of the species has 

 been extended from a small area in central New York across two 

 other states, and the loiown vertical range has grown from 3 feet to 

 more than a thousand. 



Reticularia laevis first appears in the New York section in the 

 lower part of the Nunda or Portage formation. It belongs normally 

 to the brachiopod fauna of the Ithaca facies of the Nunda or Port- 

 age. It has never been found associated with the Naples facies which 



1 Published by permission of the director of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



2 Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol. II (1881), p. 140. 



3 Ibid., p. 141. 



