420 NEW YORK ST^lTE MUSEUM 



view of the unusual conditions under which the sediments in 

 this part of the state were deposited, and under which its 

 organisms flourished on these ancient sea bottoms, the lessons to 

 be derived from the results hitherto acquired are very instruc- 

 tive. Furthermore, besides the novelty of much of the material 

 thus brought together, we have acquired for the collections of 

 the state museum an important new element; for in the past 

 the fossils of this Ithaca formation have been largely confused 

 with the organisms from the rocks beneath, and up to this time 

 the state museum has had only the most meager and uncertain 

 representation of this noteworthy element in the sequence of 

 New York faunas. 



The operations in this part of the state were not concluded 

 with the closing of last season's work, and during the season 

 of 1901 the investigations, so far as the acquisition of material 

 is concerned, have been continued and completed by covering 

 the region between the Tioughnioga river and the valley of 

 Cayuga lake. This work of collection was carried on by C. A. 

 Hartnagel with the assistance of H. S. Mattimore, and localities 

 throughout southern Cayuga, western Cortland and Tompkins 

 counties were carefully exploited. We have now the material 

 for the elaboration of various peculiar problems which come 

 into view relating to the origin and the destiny of this Ithaca 

 fauna and also the data for confirming previously expressed 

 views of its relations to the faunas of contemporaneous age 

 which adjoin it on the east and west. 



It may be here of special interest and usefulness to note that 

 the period of time in which the Ithaca deposits were laid down, 

 that is the Portage unit of time, was marked within the limita- 

 tions of the state of New York by the manifestation of at least 

 three distinct geographic fauna! provinces, one in the east, the 

 Oneonta province, where fresh-water conditions prevailed as in 

 a coastal embayment or lagoon, receiving fresh-water drain- 

 age from the continental plateau; next west, the province of 

 the true marine fauna which we know as the Ithaca fauna and 

 which owes its derivation directly to the fauna which preceded 

 it in time in this mediterranean sea or Appalachian gulf; and, 



