1869.] ' / i ■ [Wiucliell. 



seen in juxtapcvsition,7s ^ncl I am not aware of the evidence upon which 

 they had been prononnced stratigraphically consecutive. 



Through the kindness of Professor Hall I was permitted to examine 

 the original specimens of fossils from the so-called Chemung and Car- 

 boniferous conglomerates. The fossils of the latter had been collected 

 from a single locality, about four miles north of Panama in Chatauque 

 "county, and did not number in all more than half a dozen species, of 

 which three had been described in the New York Report.'?'* Of these, 

 four were found, to the surprise of both of us, to be identical with species 

 from the horizon of the Waverly series of the West. 



Nor was this all. On comparing specimens of the so-called Chemung 

 conglomerate with these, I remarked not only a great lithological similarity 

 but a striking general resemblance of the fossils, and 'an actual identity 

 of two species with species which had been identified in the Carboniferous 

 conglomerate. My conclusions, so far as any could be reached, were 

 announced in the following words : 



"In the light of these identifications, and in the absence of all identifi- 

 cations between the western species and those of the Chemung, as well as 

 between the species of this (so-called Chemung) conglomerate and those 

 of the Chemung, it might not seem unreasonable to doubt its affinities 

 with recognized Chemung rocks, and to suspect its continuity with the 

 supposed ' Carboniferous conglomerate, ' until observation shall have 

 demonstrated that its stratigraphical position is really below that forma- 

 mation. And further, since we must probably abandon the attempt to 

 coordinate the Chemung of New York with the fossiliferous portions of 

 the sandstones and shales of the West lying between the ' Black Slate ' 

 and the Coal Conglomerate, it seems not unlikely that we may yet be able 

 to prove the conglomerate of Western New York to be the attenuated 

 and littoral prolongation of those western sandstones and shales — at least 

 of the superior and fossiliferous portions of them ; so that the latter would 

 stand as a hitherto unrecognized group of strata lying at the very base of 

 the Carboniferous system ; while the Chemung rocks of New York fall 

 within the Devonian system, toward which the writer is now inclined to 

 think that their xaaleontological ai3linities attract them." 



' ' It yet remains to determine by observations in the field, whether tlie 

 so-called ' Carboniferous conglomerate ' of Western New York is really 

 the equivalent of the Coal conglomerate of Ohio ; and whether any actual 

 junction of superposition can be discovered in Western Pennsylvania or 

 Eastern Ohio between the Chemung rocks in their westward prolongation 

 and the fine grained sandstones and gritstones of the Western States." 



In December, 1865, Messrs. Meek and Worthen^° described three 

 additional siDCcies from Ohio and Illinois ; and Mr. Meek^' took up a dis- 

 cussion which involved the characters and validity of the Genus Syringo- 

 thyris from the yellow sandstones of Iowa: 



In 1806 I published^^ ^]^q results of a geological and economical survey 



™ Hall— Rep. Geol. in Bist. N. Y., p. 292. ™ Geol. 10 Dist. N. Y., p. 291. 



so Proc. Aciid. Nat. Sci. Phil., Dec, 1SG5, p. 245. ^i Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., Dec, 1SG5, p 275- 



"' The Urand Traverse Eegion, p. 51. 



