132 Kindle — Unconformity at the Base of the 



of the Waverly fauna at the base of the Cleveland shale which 

 Bassler cites as evidence of the Carboniferous age of the 

 Cleveland. 



No one who has made a detailed study of the relations of 

 the Carboniferous Sunbnry to the two lower black shales from 

 the northern to the southern boundary of Ohio, can doubt that 

 the shale which Newberry called Cleveland in the 1874 

 Report* is the Sunbury shale. It was in this volume that 

 Newberry published the list of Waverly fossils, including 

 Syringothyris typa, which he reported to have been found 

 below the Cleveland shale. It appears that the authenticity 

 of this tind was called in question during Professor Newberry's 

 lifetime, and in a later discussionf of the matter he states that 

 these fossils were collected by an assistant who was not able to 

 relocate the horizon when requested to do so. The writer and 

 Mr. P. V. Koundy searched very carefully the section from 

 which this fauna was reported to have been obtained, but 

 found immediately below the Cleveland shale a Chemung 

 fauna without any trace of Waverly species. Many other 

 geologists have studied the northern Ohio sections since Wav- 

 erly fossils w T ere reported by Newberry from below the Cleve- 

 land shale, but not one, so far as the writer is aware, claims to 

 have found Waverly fossils at this horizon.^ In view of these 

 facts I think we may safely conclude that the collector of this 

 fauna incorrectly identified the formation from which his 

 Waverly fossils came. 



If, for the reasons already stated, we dismiss from considera- 

 tion the Syringothyris fauna as evidence in this case, we find 

 that we must depend almost wholly for evidence of its age 

 upon the affinities of the rich fish and conodont faunas which 

 characterize the Cleveland shale. When Professor Newberry 

 found himself unable to substantiate his previously published 

 statement of the occurrence of a Waverly fauna at the base of 

 the Cleveland shale, he continued to maintain the Carbonifer- 

 ous age of the formation chiefly on the evidence of the occur- 

 rence in it of three genera of Carboniferous fishes, namely, 

 Hoplonchus, Orodus, and Polyrhizodus.% Concerning this 

 evidence it is well to recall that most of the fossil fishes 

 described by Newberry were obtained for him by collectors 

 on whom he depended for the correct designation of their 

 geologic horizon. Since Professor Newberry had himself con- 

 fused the Sunbury and Cleveland shales, the opportunities 



* Geol. Survey of Ohio, vol. ii, Pt. 1, p. 95. 



f Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, xvi, p. 127, 1889. 



% Note : It may be observed here that the Waverly fauna recently reported 

 in Kentucky by Foerste (Ohio Naturalist, vol. ix, No. 7, pp. 515-523, 1 pi., 

 1909), was found below the Kentucky representative of the Sunbury shale. 



§The Paleozoic Fishes of North America, Mon, U. S. Geol. Survey, xvi, 

 p. 128, 1889. 



