JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 67 
experience. ‘The first discovery of Fossil Sponges in our local 
Niagara Chert beds was made in situ at the rock-cutting of 
the Hamilton and Erie Railway, the fields adjacent to the 
bluff overhanging the line contributing many sponge sections. 
Later on our President, Mr. A. EK. Walker, and the writer on 
examining both sides of the road at the head of the Folly Cut, 
found specimens there just as numerous and in as good or better 
preservation than any beyond the reservoir. For over quarter 
of a century the fields in question have annually yielded large 
numbers of these and other fossils, but strange to say, during 
the past season while the sections of sponges were few, the 
complete forms obtainable were far in excess of any year 
previous; this may be owing to ploughing deeper which I 
understand has been recommended lately. Yet even this, 
however probable, is quite insumcient to convey to you an 
accurate explanation of this matter. I have no reason to 
doubt it, but I believe the unprecedented success of the 
past season in securing such a number of complete chert 
sponges was chiefly owing to a closer research than usual for 
this particular family, as well as the plan adopted for many 
years in the case of flint-flake chert scattered fossils, viz., 
turning up the portion underneath even when the upper sur- 
face displays no organic remains to arrest attention. I attri- 
bute to this practice much of the success during the past 
season as well as to a closer search than usual in the case of 
the complete sponges. By subdividing and carefully examin- 
ing the fossiliferous fields by sections few things can possibly 
escape observation. It must be admitted that much of the 
time formerly devoted to securing graptolites in the quarries 
was transferred in the direction of the Niagara sponges. An 
Astylospongia in situ, near the base of the Barton beds which 
succeeded the chert was extracted at an early time in summer 
and placed in a sidecase. It is a poor specimen, like all from 
this horizon, but it is of much interest owing to its position in 
indurated shale which apparently was not favorable to its 
existence, since this class of fossil does not appear in the 
succeeding band of limestone near the Albion Mill. ‘The first 
