88 FOSSIL ESTHERItE. 



1. The most northern extension of the shales and sandstones under notice is 

 exhibited in Massachusetts and Connecticut ; here sandstone appears to predominate, 

 and the well-known fossil Eoot-prints of Connecticut are found in some of the beds. 

 Eish-remains and fragments of plants have also been found ; but Estheria have not been 

 observed. 



2. The second great area stretches from New Jersey, through Pennsylvania and 

 Maryland, into Northern Virginia. In New Jersey the series consists of — 1 . (Uppermost) 

 Calcareous variegated conglomerate (with Reptilian remains), and dark-red pebbly sand- 

 stone. 2. Brick-red sandstone and shales (with Footprints), and bituminous shales (with 

 Fish-remains). Beds of coarse grey sandstone occur in the lower part of this series. 

 Estheria have not been met with. 



In Pennsylvania the following is the general order of these strata. 1. (Uppermost) 

 Conglomerate, calcareous at places. 2. Red shale and sandstone. 3. Red sandstone 

 and coarse yellowish conglomerates. 4. Red shale and brownish sandstone. 5. Pinkish 

 sandstone and shale. 6. Reddish sandstone and conglomerate (locally calcareous). Prof. 

 H. D. Rogers (whose works supply the above information for New Jersey and Penn- 

 sylvania), writing of the Pennsylvanian series,^ says that it consists essentially of reddish- 

 brown shales and clay, and argillaceous sandstone^ in intimate alternations, but locally 

 differing in proportions and distribution. The upper and lower parts of the series are 

 more sandy, and have conglomerates in them, which are locally calcareous. In the middle 

 and upper portions there are sometimes found dark- grey and blue shales, containing 

 carbonaceous matter and some seams of lignite. A detailed section of red and bituminous 

 shales (containing Estheria Plants, and other fossils), with sandstone, and other deposits, 



series, vol. ii, part 3, 1852; and in 1858, he again gave a review of the subject in the 'Proceed. Acad. 

 Nat. Sc. Phi!.,' for 1858, p. 90 ; but the more exact details, and still later information, must be learnt from 

 the works of the Brothers Eogers, Emmons, and others. D'Archiac's ' Hist. Progr^s Geo!.,' vol. vii, (p. 

 667, &c.), also contains a resume of the facts and theories relating to the Mesozoic rocks of Virginia, &c. 

 Besides the reports of the State-geologists on the several districts wherein these sandstones and shales 

 are developed, there are numerous papers in Silliman's ' American Journ. of Science and Arts,' and in the 

 ' Proceedings of the Boston Nat. Hist. Society,' and of the ' Philadelphia Academy of Sciences,' that eluci- 

 date the geological and palseoutological characters of these Mesozoic tracts. The paper 'On the Relations 

 of the Fossil Fishes of the Sandstone of Connecticut and other Atlantic States (or the Newark Sandstones) 

 to the Liassic and Oolitic Periods," by W. C. Redfield, ' Amer. Journ. Sc.,' new ser., vol. xxii, p. 357, and 

 another paper, in the ' Edinburgh New Phil. Journal,' new series, vol. v, p. 369, by Messrs. J. H. and 

 W. C. Redfield, " On the Relation of the Post-permian Fishes of Connecticut and other Atlantic States to 

 the Triassic and Jurassic Periods," are important in the history of the subject. 



1 'The Geology of Pennsylvania,' &c., 4to, 1858. In vol. ii (part 2), p. 667, &c., these red shales 

 and sandstones of "Lower Secondary Age" are treated of. Their fossils and probable place in the 

 geological scale (Lower Jurassic, according to W. B. Rogers' latest views), are mentioned at p. 693. The 

 relations of the several belts of these Mesozoic shales and sandstones on the Atlantic slope are treated of 

 at p. 697. The conclusion arrived at is that the formation in question "was created in the period which 

 unites the Triassic and Jurassic ages " (p. 697). 



