I08 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Schuchert, C. On the Lower Silurian (Trenton) Fauna of Baffin Land. 



Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 22: 143. 1900 

 Ruedemann, R. Hudson River Beds near Albany and their Taxonomic 



Equivalents. N. Y. State Mus. Bui. 42, 1901 

 Ruedemann, R. The Lower Silurian Shales of the Mohawk Valley. N. Y. 



State Mus. Bui. 162, 1912 

 Bassler, R, S. Bibliographic Index of American Ordovician and Silurian 



Fossils. U. S. Nat. Mus. Bui. 92, 1915 



10 The Age of the Black Shales o£ the Lake Champlain Region 



The black shales of the Champlain region form a continuous belt 

 on the Vermont side of the lake, but appear only in a few small 

 sporadic patches on the New York side. They form the top of the 

 Ordovician series and are considered to this day as Utica shale (see 

 Perkins, 1916, p. 208) for the good reason that they are black shales 

 of the appearance of the Utica shale, rest upon Trenton limestone 

 and while very barren, still contain in "Triarthrus becki" 

 and "Diplograptus prist is," "Climaclograptus 

 bicornis," "Schizocrania filosa," "Orthoceras 

 coraliferum" (see Perkins 1904, p. 106) species that would 

 appear as fair evidence of Utica age. 



The existence of a fine transitional series from the Trenton lime- 

 stone to the Utica shale on the shore of Lake Champlain in the town 

 of Panton, Yt., was pointed out to the writer by the late Dr Theo- 

 dore White of Columbia University, and the locality visited in 1899. 

 From the fossils then obtained, especially the presence of a Cory- 

 noides, the writer later (see Ruedemann, 1908, p. 37) inferred that 

 the black shales intercalated in the top of the Trenton lime- 

 stone series, represented low Utica and were of about the same 

 age as the shale at the Rural cemetery at Albany, then also con- 

 sidered as early Utica. When this shale later (Ruedemann, 191 2) 

 was recognized to be of early Trenton age and placed with the Cana- 

 joharie shale, and it became further obvious that no Utica shale was 

 developed as such in the Hudson valley and Utica beds there prob- 

 ably absent altogether, the question of the age of the so-called Utica 

 shale of the Champlain region came up at once, and it has since been 

 the conviction of Doctor Ulrich and the writer that there is no 

 Utica shale in that region, but that the black shales, attaining such 

 a great thickness in western Vermont, are older than Utica age. 



The writer had in 1899 collected only from the transitional beds, 

 but the Rev. E. W. Gould, then of Bristol, Vt., an enthusiastic stu- 

 dent of geology, undertook in 191 8, upon my suggestion, to collect 



