Chattanooga Shale in Kentucky. 135 



the conodonts, so far as their evidence is recorded, indicate a 

 Devonian age for the Cleveland shale. 



Resume of conclusions concerning age of unconformity. — 

 Briefly summarizing the discussion of the question of the age 

 of the Cleveland shale, we may say that (1) the evidence of 

 the Waverly fauna originally brought forward by Newberry 

 and restated by Bassler should be eliminated from considera- 

 tion, because neither Newberry nor any of his successors have 

 been able to substantiate it by finding a similar fauna at the 

 base of the Cleveland. (2) Later workers have failed to find 

 any of the Carboniferous fishes claimed by Newberry to occur 

 in it. (3) Some of the large fossil fishes which characterize 

 the Cleveland are represented by identical species in rocks of 

 demonstrated Devonian age. (4) The Cleveland shale cono- 

 donts, so far as their range has been recorded, are known 

 elsewhere only from Devonian rocks. 



If there is extant no valid evidence of the Carboniferous age 

 of the Cleveland shale, as the preceding review of it appears 

 to indicate, the correlation of the Chattanooga shale, either in 

 part or in toto with the Cleveland, affords strong evidence for, 

 instead of against, its Devonian age as has been assumed by 

 Dr. Bassler. This evidence in the north is fully corrobo- 

 rated in the south by the discovery of a conodont fauna in a 

 black shale of admitted Devonian age in east Tennessee which 

 is identical with that in the Chattanooga shale. Thus we see 

 that correlation of the Cleveland shale with its equivalent or 

 partial equivalent, both in northern Ohio and eastern Tennes- 

 see, indicates its Devonian age. 



With respect to the unconformity at the base of the Chatta- 

 nooga shale, the important and obvious fact which appears 

 from this discussion of the age of the Chattanooga is, that it 

 does not transgress Devonian time. The field work of the 

 writer has furnished convincing evidence, both stratigraphic 

 and faunal, that the Chattanooga shale in Kentucky represents 

 the Huron as well as the higher beds of the Ohio shale. Detailed 

 presentation of the faunal and stratigraphic evidence of the 

 continuity of the Huron shale across Kentucky must, however, 

 await the appearance of the writer's report on the fauna and 

 stratigraphy of the Chattanooga shale. Only the evidence 

 of one of the fossil fishes will be introduced here. Dr. L. 

 Hussakof writes"* concerning one of the fossil fishes obtained 

 from this horizon by the writer and Mr. P. A. Bungart on 

 Copperas Creek, east of Indian Fields, Clarke Co., Kentucky, 

 as follows : 



" The specimen from Copperas Creek is without any question 

 Dinichthys herzeri Newberry, the species supposed to be indica- 



*A letter to the writer, Nov. 28, 1911. 



