168  F. B. Meek and A. H. Worthen on the Age 
in several of the Western States. Owing to the fact that this - 
s] 
as been seen to form the bed the same stream at another 
place about one mile above, and at a slightly higher elevation, 
it has been supposed that the Goniatite bed is intercalated in it, 
and the mystery has been that the fossils occurring in the 
limestone have a decidedly Carboniferous aspect, and in some 
instances have even been considered actually identical with 
well known European Carboniferous species; while the Black 
slate has been referred by Prof. Hall of Albany, New York, to 
the horizon of the Marcellus shale of the N. Y. series, occupy- 
ing a position far down in the Devonian, at the base of the 
Hamilton Group.* In addition to this, Prof. Hall also refers a 
rather extensive series of fine arenaceous, and more or less 
of the Devonian, which are in New York overlaid by a great 
thickness of upper Devonian strata equivalent to the Old Red 
Sandstone, of the British geologists. 
_ Without attempting to give a detailed statement of the opin- 
ions that have from time to time been expressed in regard to 
the age of the Black slate and overlying strata alluded to, we 
would remark that the most generally received opinion amongst 
estern geologists has been, that the whole series known in 
Indiana and Kentucky as the “Fine-grained sandstone of the 
nobs,” down to the Black slate, should be included in the 
Carboniferous system, and some even include the latter also in 
the Carboniferous. 
When the distinguished French geologist, DeVerneuil, was in 
this country in 1846, he made an excursion through the Western 
States for the purpose of studying our rocks, and obtained a 
fine collection of their characteristic fossils. After his return to 
Europe he published a highly interesting memoir on the parallel- 
ism of American and European formations, in which he referred 
all the fine arenaceous and shaly beds holding a position be- 
tween the Black slate and the Carboniferous limestones in In- 
diana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as a portion of the 
Waverly sandstone in Ohio, to the Carboniferous system. One 
the Goniatites given to him by Dr. Owen from the Rockford lime- 
stone, he considered identical with G. rotatorius of Koninck, @ 
well known Lower Carboniferous species, which led him to refer 
the limestone from which it was obtained to the lower Carbonif, 
erous. The Black Slate, however, he referred to the horizon of ee 
the Genesee slate of the New York series.+ 
* See Proceed. Am. As. Geol. and Nat., p. 267, vol. i; also Rept. 4 Dist. N.Y. 
Geol. Survey, p. 519. 
.  $ See Bulletin Geol. Soc, France, vol. iv, 2d Series, 
