New York State Education Department 



New York State Museum 



John M. Clarke, Director 



Memoir 9 



EARLY DEVONIC HISTORY 



OF 



NEW YORK AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA 



BY . 



JOHN M. CLARKE 

 PART I 



INTRODUCTION 

 In geologic as in other science no state liveth unto itself. Political 

 boundaries are not the metes of knowledge. The geology of New York is 

 not an esoteric cult ; the succession of its rock formations and the composi- 

 tion of the ancient faunas buried therein are so excellently known that the 

 New York Series of Geologic Formations has long stood and still remains 

 a standard for exact comparison wherever problems relating to the older 

 rocks of the earth present themselves. For seventy years the factors in 

 the geologic history of this State have been zealously acquired with undi- 

 minishing ardor. Today their body is vast in detail and the foundation of 

 broad conclusions of far-reaching significance. The geologic history of 

 New York in all that the term implies — its geographic development, the 

 uplifting and modification of its surface, the procession of life forms of its 

 ancient seas — is approaching an accurate expression. The State, however, 

 does not and never can in itself afford the solution of its own problems. 

 The New York series of formations spreads away from its typical region to 

 all points of the compass, and in all these directions, howsoever far it 

 extends, light is to be sought for the explication of past geologic conditions 



5 



