594 PBOCEEDINGS OF THE WASHINGTON MEETING 



On motion of J. J. Stevenson, it was voted to authorize the Secretary 

 to send by telegraph the greeting of the Society to the Cordilleran Sec- 

 tion, convening this day in San Francisco. 



The first paper was then read : 



STRATIGRAPHY OF THE POTTS VILLE SERIES IN KENTUCKY 

 BY MARIUS R. CAMPBELL 



Remarks were made by David White, I. C. White, W. M. Davis, J. J. 

 Stevenson, and Bailey Willis. 



The second paper was 



RELATIVE AGES OF THE KANAWHA AND ALLEGHANY SERIES AS INDICATED 



BY THE FOSSIL PLANTS 



BY DAVID WHITE 



Remarks were made by I. C. White, M. R. Campbell, J. J. Stevenson, 

 and the author. 



[Discussion.] 



H. S. Williams remarked 



That the case of the Catskill formation was analogous, and favored the inter- 

 pretation given by Doctor White. It is known that the Catskill sedimentation at 

 its extreme eastern extension is much lower in the section than it is a hundred 

 miles farther west, in central New York- Pennsylvania, and on reaching the western 

 limits of these states the marine Chemung faunas follow on up to the very base of 

 the Carboniferous, with no sign of the Catskill rocks or fauna. Where the Catskill 

 is fully developed, in eastern New York, the Chemung is either entirely wanting, 

 so far as its marine fauna is concerned, or its fossils appear sparsely in the midst 

 of the coarse sands of Catskill type. As low as the horizon of the Hamilton fauna 

 the sedimentation assumes the arenaceous and sometimes the reddish character of 

 the typical Catskill rocks. 



Also, on general principles, the very fact that difference in the nature of the 

 deposits is determined by the motion of the waters bearing the sediments makes 

 it necessary to assume that at an}' particular point of time the deposits made at 

 one place could not continue to be the same for any great distance in the direction 

 away from the shore from which the sediments came. Hence the fact of the con- 

 tinuation of the identical kind of sedimentation for hundreds of miles in extent, 

 unless assumed to be parallel to a uniform shoreline, would indicate that the for- 

 mation was younger at one end than the other, to be accounted for by the gradual 

 rising of the bottom relative to the water surface, and thus the progression of the 

 shore-line toward the younger end of the line. 



This same cause of the shifting of the sediments, namely, gradual elevation, 

 would also be expressed in shifting of faunas which are known in modern seas to 

 be closely adjusted to the conditions of depth. 



One should expect to find, therefore, considerable shifting of faunas when the 

 sediments are near-shore accumulations, and a close study of the geographical dis- 



