OBSERVATIONS UPON THE WAVERLY GROUP. 503. 



and most of the characteristic species re-collected. This served to settle 

 the question conclusively except for the few feet above this horizon. At 

 a level twenty feet higher a curious depauperate fauna is found which 

 seems to be the greatly modified product of .the above mentioned. The 

 conditions appear to have been unfavorable and the same species which 

 is large and conspicuously marked in the forty-foot layer is here half the 

 size and faintly marked. A few species belonging to a horizon just be- 

 neath conglomerate I, have also been found just below the coal-measure 

 conglomerate at Weymouth. This is a most interesting illustration of 

 the effect of changed conditions on the fauna. 



At the August meeting of the American Geological. Society in 1890 

 the writer summarized the then state of the problem substantially as in 

 what here follows. It should be added that valuable assistance was 

 afforded in the field work in various parts of the state by Mr. W. F. 

 Cooper. 



General Summary. ,_ 



As stated by Professor Orton.J^h«-W«*'eElK_rje sts with p r actical con- 

 for mability on the g reat series-^^Qhio-Black Shales,!' including three 

 <Tr ^^i23fi which ^^d4fl44tTTirtrrH'raj ortherri .na^ accord- 



i ng to Orton, are blended inj ^gjceatraLand. southern „patts„-.o£_the~State. 

 Whether the Huron, Erie and Cleveland shales are fused or regarded as 

 distinct in age (as Dr. Newberry insists) or whether the Erie be regarded 

 as a wedge inserted from the east into homogeneous series formed by 

 Huron, Cleveland and Bedford in the; west, it cannot be doubted that the 

 Erie is a close homologue and direct continuation of the New York Che- 

 mung. The paleontological and stratigraphical evidence for this state-_ 

 ment is complete. 



The following passages from a paper in the Bulletin of Denison 

 University, vol. 12, express the general conclusions reached by a study 

 of these faunse: 



"All discussion of the age of the lower Waverly now turns upon the 

 question as to the age of the Erie and Bedford, and this question stands 

 in need of careful field-work and especially more extended and minute 

 palaeontological examination. Meanwhile the following suggestions may 

 be hazarded. First, we may assume as proven that the Erie shales are 

 of Chemung age, that is, in the broad sense, including Portage. The 

 fossils, on the whole, indicate lower Chemung or Portage. Are we to 

 conclude from this that all which lies stratigraphically above the Erie is 

 certainly later faunally than the top of the Chemung as seen in New 

 York strata? We think this does not by any means follow. We are 

 struck in examining the stratigraphy of the Waverly by the fact that the 

 dip of the true Waverly strata is southeast and the great area of its de- 

 position is in a different basin from the Chemung. The Waverly strata 

 thin out to the northeast while the Erie increases in thickness in the 



