58 JOURNAL AND PR0CP:EDINGS. 



REPORT OF THE CxEOLOGICAL SECTION. 



Read before the Haniiltou Association A/ay gth, iSg_^. 



The Section, in submitting this report, desire to state that though 

 the attendance of members has not been large, the usual interest in 

 the work of the Section has been maintained by a few, so that at the 

 end of another year we are able to report that considerable progress 

 has been made towards making the geological part of the museum 

 more complete, although it is yet far from perfect, and it is scarcely 

 expected that the dream of the most sanguine will be reached for 

 some time to come. 



The result of last year's work has been the means of proclaiming 

 to the geological student that the fossil fauila of the rocks in Ham- 

 ilton and vicinity has not been exhausted. These rich stores have 

 been drawn upon from time to time by our worthy and indefatigable 

 Chairman, and distributed throughout the world. As the result, 

 Hamilton is credited with three new genera of fossil sponges, and 

 seven new species, and the end is not yet. This locality is also 

 renowned for its rich stores of graptolites which have been attracting 

 the attention of some of the most eminent men of graptolitic lore on 

 this continent, as well as those of the European. 



Mr. A. E. Walker presented to the section a very valuable col- 

 lection of fossils, properly classified and named, being the result of 

 forty years' collection. These fossils are representatives of the dif- 

 ferent formations, ranging from the Trenton up to the sub-carbonifer- 

 ous. There is a specimen in this collection obtained from the 

 Utica-shale which requires particular notice because it reveals to the 

 palasontological world an important discovery, now recorded, so far 

 as is known, for the first time in that horizon. 



This specimen referred to has a circular mass of spicules on its 

 surface bearing a close resemblance to those found in the Niagara chert 

 beds at Hamilton, and forms the connecting link which traces back 



