A. F Foerste — Fossil localities in the early Paleozoics. 443 



fauna is still too meager. The horizon corresponds evidently 

 to the Cambrian portion of the Magnesian beds in New Jersey. 



While fossils are not common in the upper or middle por- 

 tions of the Magnesian limestones in eastern Pennsylvania 

 and New Jersey, or of the Stockbridge limestone in, the 

 southern half of Vermont, still they are found. In the publi- 

 cations of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey such localities 

 are mentioned and they occur also in the West Rutland valley 

 both northeast and southwest of the town. The fossils are 

 such as to make evident their Lower Silurian character. They 

 are found beneath the thin dark blue Trenton limestone. So 

 their general reference to the Chazy-Calciferous is warranted 

 (J. D. Dana, An account of the discoveries in Vermont geol- 

 ogy of the Rev. Augustus Wing, this Journal, 1877). The 

 basal portions of the Hudson River formation at West Rut- 

 land and elsewhere in southern Vermont is often represented 

 by dark, black shales of that peculiar lithological character 

 which at once suggests the presence of graptolites but these 

 have so far not been discovered. In New Jersey, however, 

 the writer is informed by Prof. J. C. Smock, the State Geolo- 

 gist, that graptolites were found by Dr. C. E. Beecher along 

 the railroad track between Pattenburg and Midvale. Near 

 Hoosick, New York, graptolites occur at the same horizon 

 (C. D. Walcott, The Taconic System of Emmons). They will 

 probably be found some time in Vermont. 



The chief difference between the lower paleozoic sections in 

 the southern half of Vermont between the Taconic and Green 

 Mountain areas, and those of New Jersey and Pennsylvania lie 

 in the fact that in Vermont the typical Olenellus sandstone, be- 

 sides being thicker, overlies a considerable thickness of other 

 sandstones, and conglomerates, evidently belonging to the same 

 geological unit, but of which, in the absence of fossils, the pre- 

 cise age cannot be definitely determined. In other respects the 

 correspondence is striking, necessitating the belief that both re- 

 gions have passed through a closely similar geologic history, and 

 as such might be said to belong to the same geologic province, 

 that Atlantic province extending of course much farther south 

 than eastern Pennsylvania. This similarity is the more strik- 

 ing owing to the dissimilarity from this simplicity of lithologic 

 structure in regions farther north and west and southwest than 

 the various Rutland Valley belts of southern Vermont, as 

 here discussed. This can be partly accounted for by the fact 

 that the Adirondacks in earlier paleozoic times formed a sepa- 

 rate source of sediments, and surrounded themselves by a series 

 of rocks whose lithological characteristics are somewhat at 

 variance with those deposited at a greater distance. The 

 sphere of their influence extended into northwestern Vermont, 



