Handbook of Paleontology 319 



Queenston). This formation was included in the "Me- 

 dina sandstone" of Vanuxem ('40), representing the 

 lower red shales. The shales are friable and the ulti- 

 mate product of weathering is a sticky red clay. No 

 fossils have been found in the New York beds, but it 

 has been reported that beds containing Richmond fossils 

 are intercalated in the Queenston shale in Ontario. The 

 Queenston shales are the stratigraphic equivalent of the 

 Juniata formation (Darton '96) of Pennsylvania, Mary- 

 land and Virginia. 



The Upper Medina beds include the Lower Silurian 

 formations above the Queenston shales, that is, the sand- 

 stones and shales between these beds and the gray band 

 or upper sandstone. To these sandstones and shales the 

 name Albion sandstone has been given. The original 

 name, "Medina sandstone" (Vanuxem '40), for all these 

 beds was taken from exposures along Oak Orchard creek 

 at Medina, Orleans county. From these beds also is de- 

 rived the name for the series, which has also been termed 

 the Oswegan group (Clarke and Schuchert '99), from 

 the widespread occurrence of the members in Oswego 

 county, though this latter term for the group is not now 

 properly in use. The Albion sandstone (Clarke) which 

 has a maximum thickness of about 120 feet, consists of 

 a basal, coarse, white sandstone, the Whirlpool sandstone 

 (Grabau '09), with a maximum thickness of 20 feet, and 

 an upper series of alternating red and gray shales and 

 sandstones with a thickness of 100 feet, more or less. On 

 top of these beds is a hard, gray sandstone, the Thorold 

 sandstone, which has been included in the Medina beds, 

 at the top, as part of the Albion sandstone but was orig- 

 inally put by Vanuxem at the base of the Clinton, of 

 which it is really the initial deposit of coarse sands left 



