THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 7 1 



GEOLOGICAL NOTES IN CONTINUAllON. 



Read before the Geological Secfioii, January 2jih^ iSg^. 

 BY COL. C. C. GRANT. 



No doubt many of the fossils found in this neighborhood may 

 prove to be of more common occurrence in the higher portions of the 

 formation elsewhere, still their appearance here, at or near the base 

 of the Niagara, may be put on record. In the paper read on a late 

 occasion, viz., 2nd November, I confined myself chiefly to pointing 

 out organic remains in local beds that are rare, little, or altogether 

 unknown. In the Palaeontology of Ontario (Nicholson) eleven pages 

 only are devoted to describing or naming the fossils found in the 

 Medina, Clinton and Niagara rocks of the entire Province. Surely 

 this ijiust be insufficient to convey an adequate idea of the richness 

 ' in organic remains contained in the entire Ontario series. 



Dr. James Hall, of Albany, emphatically pronounced what now 

 remains of our chert beds (12 feet) on the brow of the escarpment 

 to be a most interesting sub-series of the middle Silurians, appar- 

 ently of local occurrence. Yet I find we are not credited with pos- 

 sessing above half a dozen common Brachiopods and a single 

 Didyonema (D. Gracilis, Hall). The Barton, or AVaterlime, sub- 

 division, 85 feet in thickness, resting on the Niagara chert, with its 

 once concealed treasures of Spencer, so rich in plants and corals, 

 Brachiopods, was quite unknown to the Toronto professors. I cannot 

 find even a characteristic mollusc of the beds referred to, since 

 Atrypa reticularis occurs all through the formation, and even that is 

 mentioned as being abundant at Thorold merely. Our cases are very 

 incomplete as regards Barton specimens, and several of the more 

 characteristic ones are unrepresented, viz., Trochoceras desplainense ; 

 a large Cyr(oceras, an Avicula found in a layer considerably above 

 the former (a new species probably), and Miirchesonice, which merely 

 leave empty cast in a limestone bed. However, as the beds in 

 which they were found are noted, we may expect to procure some, 

 at least, for our cases yet. The new proprietor of the Albion quarry 



