REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 1901 665 



somewliat more to the north, specially in its westerly ex- 

 tent. In the vicinity of Albany the coast line turned to the 

 south and bent along the present trend of the Appalachians 

 wherever the latter are indicated by topographic features or 

 structural details. At the commencement of Devonic time the 

 Appalachian gulf was a great embayment, opening widely to the 

 northwest and southwest into the Mississippian sea and sub- 

 merging all the western and central areas of New York and the 

 southeastern area west of the Silurics of Orange and Sullivan 

 counties. The northern coast line spread widely to the north- 

 west through Ontario and Manitoba, the southern extended 

 down the Appalachians through Pennsylvania, Maryland and 

 Virginia. Outside and eastward of the gulf, separated there- 

 from by a narrow land bar, was, we may confidently believe, 

 in accordance with Messrs Ulrich and Schuchert's deductions, a 

 stretch of water probably of no great width as far as Albany, 

 likewise extending parallel with the Appalachian trend. From 

 the evidences of early Devonic rocks in Massachusetts, New 

 Hampshire and Maine we have reason to believe this area 

 widened irregularly to the Atlantic and passed far beyond 

 the head of the gulf to the northward. Southward down 

 this waterway traveled the congeries of species which in the 

 early Devonic entered New York from a center of prolific de- 

 velopment and departure in Gasp^ and New Brunswick, and in 

 Siluric times from regions of the east still more remote. This 

 is a condition which had existed long before the Devonic, and 

 the same waters had served as a passage for the migration of 

 species into eastern New York. While the early Devonic saw 

 the continuance of the condition, the later stages of the time 

 witnessed its disruption and discontinuance. 



Helderbergian fauna 

 The earliest of the Devonic faunas of New York is that of the 

 Helderbergian. Geographically the Helderberg sediments, as 

 shown by Ulrich and Schuchert, were laid down east of the land 

 barrier and on the west shore of the Appalachian strait and 

 in our view, also along the widening northern opening of this 



