34 THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS. |bull.80. 



The classification of De la Beche is reported in the Journal, 1 a few 

 points of which may be worth recording in order to show how opinion 

 stood in England at this time. The rocks from the top down to what 

 is called "the lowest fossiliferous " are divided into nine groups, and 

 together are called " the superior stratified or fossiliferous rocks." 

 These divisions are as follows : 



1. Alluvial Group. (>. R©d Sandstone. 



2. Diluvial Group. 7. Carboniferous. 



3. Lowest Great Mamniiferous. 8. Grauwacke. 



4. Cretaceous. 9- Lowest Fossiliferous. 



5. Oolitic. 



In this classification is seen also a separation of the Old Red sand- 

 stone from the Carboniferous, placing the Old Red in the eighth divi- 

 sion, the Grauwacke. 



Eaton identified the second coal with the formations below the " Salif- 

 erous," and the third coal, he stated, is the same with the outcrops in 

 Ithaca and on Cayuga Lake. 2 



This opinion was controverted by David Thomas, who dates his ar- 

 ticle, Greatfield, Cayuga Couuty, New York, 1830. 3 He pointed out the 

 fact that the rocks on Cayuga Lake dip slightly to the south, which 

 would bring them below the Tioga coal, and he modestly differed from 

 the distinguished geologist, Prof. Eaton, and suggested that these rocks 

 on Cayuga Lake must belong to different strata, below the coal deposits 

 of Tioga, Pennsylvania. 



In 1831 Silliman compared conglomerates associated with the anthra- 

 cite coal in Pennsylvania with the Millstone grit of the English Coal 

 Measures; 4 in 1832 5 Eaton supposed that he had established identity for 

 the rocks in New York with European strata by their contained fossils, 

 for u (l) Granular limerock with no organic remains ; (2) the Metallifer- 

 ous, mountain, or Carboniferous limerock," which he recognized by 

 fossils in the rocks from Glens and Trenton Falls, Bethlehem, Catskill, 

 Esopus Strand, and Rondout. "(3) The Oolitic series of calcareous 

 rocks, the * coral rag,' " recognized on the south shore of Lake Erie, 

 and 23 miles southwest of Albany. a (4) Tertiary marls," recognized 

 in New Jersey as " London clay," and u shell marl " in the bank of the 

 Erie Canal, 10 miles west of the Onondaga Salt Works. 



This article is dated October 2, 1831 ; the identifications, as it will be 

 seen, are mainly utterly wrong, although the attempt shows how the 

 principle of correlation by means of fossils was being forced into notice 

 and adopted by even the extreme disciples of Werner. 



In the same year and volume 6 Eato n published another article, enti- 



1 De la B6che, Henry. Sketch of a classification of the European rocks. Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 18, 

 1830, pp. 26-39. 



a Albany Institute, Transactions, vol. 1 ; also Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 19, pp. 21-26. 



8 Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 19, p. 326. 



* Ibid., pp. 21-26. 



6 "On the four cardinal points in Stratigraphic Geology, established by organic remains." Am. 

 Jour. Sci., vol. 21, pp. 199-200. 



6 Ibid., pp. 132-138. 



