l8 ' CHARLES S. PROSSER 



member may be seen along the road through Mill Creek Mountain 

 Gap, il miles southwest of town [Romney]. Here the section 

 shows an abrupt transition from the gray, highly calcareous coarse 

 sandstone full of Oriskany fossils to drab shale approximately loo 

 feet thick, with some calcareous bands containing the Onondaga 

 fauna. Fossils are not so readily found as at many other locaHties. 

 Among those collected are Anoplotheca acutiplicata, Dalmanella 

 lenticularis , and Ambocoelia umbonata."^ 



It is beheved that the above account shows conclusively that 

 the Romney shales in their typical locahty near Romney, West 

 Virginia, represent the southwestern continuation of the Onondaga 

 limestone, Marcellus shale, and Hamilton formation of New York. 



Outcrops south and north of Springfield. — 'North of Hanging 

 Rock the valley road crosses a ridge of Oriskany sandstone and then 

 for some distance south and north of Springfield the outcrops are 

 mostly of thin black shales closely resembling hthologically the 

 Marcellus shale member of the Romney formation. North of 

 Springfield and perhaps three miles south of Green Spring in the 

 cut of the Romney branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad are 

 black, argillaceous shales, and interstratified with the shales are 

 several limestone layers, some of which are six inches in thickness. 

 The limestone is very dark gray and blue to almost black in color, 

 with a decided petroleum odor. It contains iron pyrites and is 

 crossed by joints filled with calcite. There is a dip to the west 

 and also to the south, and about 20 feet of rock is shown in the cut. 

 Some of the layers of Hmestone contain a large number of small 

 fossils, especially of the small species of Ambocoelia, which the 

 writer has named A. virginiana.^ Part of the limestone contains 

 large numbers of this species, the best specimens of which came 

 from this cut. When studied in the field these shales were referred 

 to the Marcellus member; but it is possible that they occur lower 

 in the Romney shale in that part of the formation which later has 

 been correlated with the Onondaga. 



Outcrops southeast of Romney. — -To the east of Romney is the 

 Jennings formation, succeeded by the Hampshire formation, the 



^ United States Geological Survey, Bulletin 508, p. 41. 



^ Maryland Geological Survey, Middle and Upper Devonian, text (1913), p. 202. 



