14 Geological Reports on the State of New York. 



" The course of our investigations having resulted in the conviction, 

 that the rocks of New York, with the exception of the upper part of the 

 Catskill mountains, terminate with the upper Ludlow rocks of Murchi- 

 son, we have an additional argument in favor of the universal nature of 

 ancient formations, and the contemporaneous deposition of our coal strata 

 with those of Europe. This correspondence. Professor Eaton has inferred 

 from the identity of the fossil flora, but the proof does not end here. 

 While the same kind of plants flourished upon the islands where now 

 are the continents of Europe and America, the same species of shells 

 existed in the waters which girded them. Thus in the ironstone layers 

 beneath the coal of Tioga county, the common European bivalve, Pro- 

 ducta scahricula, abounds just as it does at Coalbrook dale in the same 

 rock. Specimens from both countries, if accidentally mixed, could not 

 be separated by any mineral or conchological difference." 



" Limestone containing these fossils is not of frequent occurrence in 

 Pennsylvania or Ohio; the shells being chiefly imbedded in bituminous 

 shale and ironstone, and in Ohio, in chert." 



" 1. The first group of strata, in the descending order, below the sand- 

 stone which contains impressions of terrestrial plants, consists of rocks 

 which are seldom calcareous, and appear to be equivalent, as mentioned 

 in my report of last year, to the Ludlow rocks of Murchison. In Mr. 

 Vanuxem's report will be found an accurate account of the characteristic 

 species of each group." 



" 2. The second group consists chiefly of limestone. Two intercala- 

 ted strata of sandstone occur, characterized by a species of fucoides, 

 which we have named F. Cauda-galli. No other organic remain is 

 found in this rock. The group is undoubtedly equivalent to the celebra- 

 ted Dudley limestone, the Wenlock and Dudley rocks of Murchison." 



" 3. The third group has been termed ' calciferous slate' by Eaton. 

 It is a gray limestone shale, containing all the gypsum beds of the State. 

 Organic remains are very rare, except on the Genesee river, where no 

 gypsum occurs. The lower part contains a thin stratum of limestone, 

 made of broken valves of a Pentamerus. This is the only instance of 

 shells broken by attrition that has come under our observation through- 

 out the whole transition order. Above the Pentamerus, the well known 

 trilobite Asaphus caudatus is abundant. The group is equivalent to the 

 * dye earth' of Shropshire, which is characterized by the trilobite above 

 mentioned." 



"4. 'Saliferous sandrock' of Eaton. Red sandstone and shales oc- 

 curring in the banks of Niagara river, are admirably developed at the 

 falls of Genesee river. The organic remains consist chiefly of Fucoides 

 Harlani, nobis (F. Brongniartii, Harlan.) Veins of fresh-water shells 

 occur in it at Medina. I obtained very perfect casts of the hinge of the 



