Section II.— DEVOOTAN AND CARBONIFEROUS FOSSILS. 



By George H. Girty. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the following pages are described the Paleozoic faunas, with the 

 exception of the Cambrian, which have been found in the Yellowstone 

 National Park. The point of interest in this connection is the presence of 

 the Devonian and the apparent absence of the Coal Measures in this region. 

 The Ordovician and Silurian are also absent, and the only Paleozoic forma- 

 tions indicated by the collections are the Cambrian, the Devonian, and the 

 Lower Carboniferous. 



The great bulk of the material was furnished by the Madison limestone, 

 whose fauna, though showing close relations only with that of the Kinder- 

 hook period, may have survived nearly through the Mississippian. The 

 fauna is essentially that described by White and by Hall and Whitfield, 1 

 but it is more extensive than that recorded by them. 



Devonian types^ are rare and constitute a fauna more scanty, though 

 nearly akin to that described by Meek and by Walcott from the Rocky 

 Mountain region of Nevada. 



The collections which I have had the privilege of examining were 

 made by the geologists of the Yellowstone National Park survey, whose 

 careful stratigraphic observations rendered easier the solution of many 



'As is well known, the principal literature dealing with the paleontology of the Devonian and 

 Lower Carboniferous in the Rocky Mountain region consists of a report by Meek and another by Hall 

 and Whitfield in King's U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., Vol. IV, 1877; a report by White in Wheeler's 

 Expl. and Surv. W. 100th Merid., Vol. IV, 1875; and a monograph by Walcott, Mon. U. S. Geol. 

 Survey, Vol. VIII, Pal. Eureka District, 1881. 



Meek has also identified certain Mississippian horizons in this region: Prelim. Rept. U. S. Geol. 

 Surv. Wyoming, etc., Hayden, Fourth Ann. Rept., 1871, p. 288; ibid., Fifth Ann. Rept., p. 76; ibid., 

 Sixth Ann. Rept., pp. 432-433. 



479 



