Handbook of Paleontology 281 



only from Europe. The Rysedorph conglomerate has 

 a wide distribution within the Xormanskill shale belt in 

 the capital district. At the north it has been found at the 

 base- of Eald mountain and at the south at Schodack 

 Landing along the Hudson river. At the type locality 

 the bed is two and one-half feet thick, but in other sec- 

 tions it shows varying thicknesses up to 50 feet (Moor- 

 dener kill, near Castleton). The Burden conglomerate 

 (Grabau '03) is found near Becraft mountain and other 

 places in the vicinity of Hudson within the Xormanskill 

 shales. Xo fossils have been found, It is thought that 

 this may be identical with the Rysedorph conglomerate. 

 The Black River beds (Yanuxem '42) include the 

 Lowville, Leray. Y\ atertown and Amsterdam limestones. 

 They are chiefly confined to the Mohawk and Black 

 River valleys but also occur farther east in the Upper 

 Hudson and Champlain valleys. The Black River series 

 consists of thin-bedded, often somewhat bituminous lime- 

 stones with a maximum thickness of about 150 feet and 

 with many fossils. The Lowville limestone (Schuchert 

 and Clarke '99) has its best development in the region of 

 the lower Black river where it has a maximum thickness 

 of 60 feet. The basal bed is conglomerate and of vari- 

 able thickness, but typically it consists of thick and thin- 

 bedded, fine-grained dove limestone which weathers 

 a characteristic ashen gray color. This is the "Birdseye" 

 formation of Eaton ('24) who hrst described it from the 

 Mohawk valley. The name was derived from the fact 

 that the limestone contains numerous more or less ver- 

 tical worm tubes, Phytopsis tubulosum, which are filled 

 with calcite producing the birdseyes in cross-section. The 

 present name is from the exposures in the town of Low- 

 ville, Lewis countv. This formation is also characterized 



