248 PALAEONTOLOGY OF ILLINOIS. 



lower formations were progressing, Mr. W. 0. VAN Horne was prose- 

 cuting similar and most exhaustive researches in the St. Louis formation ; 

 besides it is largely due to him that opportunity was afforded one of the 

 writers to make a thorough examination of this formation in the environs 

 of St. Louis, where it presents its most typical development. An inter- 

 esting result of these explorations was the ascertaining that the fishes 

 range through a considerable thickness of limestone strata, at least forty 

 feet, instead of occurring in "fish-beds" of a few inches, or feet at most, in 

 thickness, as obtained in the Kinderkook, Burlington, Keokuk, and prob- 

 ably theWarsaw formations, as well as the superincumbent Chester beds. 

 The interest and variety of the remains from the St. Louis beds is not 

 excelled, while at the same time they are as markedly characteristic in 

 faunal facies as are the fishes whose remains occur in horizons of more 

 limited vertical extent. As an illustration of the latter horizons, no 

 finer example occurs to us than that discovered by Mr. Springer and 

 Mr. Wachsmuth in the Kinderhook at Burlington, where two distinct 

 "fish-beds," separated by only a few feet of intervening strata, exhibit 

 in the main quite peculiar faunal characteristics, though there are many 

 found common to both horizons. During his residence at Boonville, 

 Dr. (x. A.Williams has prosecuted a careful examination of the strati- 

 graphy of the Keokuk and Warsaw divisions in Central Missouri, with 

 especial reference to the distribution of their contained fish remains. The 

 results of his explorations show a remarkable conformity to the strati- 

 graphic phases of these formations as they appear in Iowa and Illinois, 

 and which information should be embodied in an exhaustive treatise on 

 the stratigraphy of the Lower Carboniferous deposits. We are also 

 indebted to Mr. L. A. Fuller, Professors B. F. Mudge and James 

 Todd, Mr. Alex. Butters, Prof. J. J. Stevenson, and Dr. A. Litton, 

 for important information and material derived from the Coal Measure 

 formations, and extending from West Virginia in the Appalachian 

 region to the plains of Kansas west of the Missouri. 



Of the magnificent collections brought together by these explorations, 

 and those previously made by one of the authors during the many years 

 occupied in the geological examination of the country bordering upon 

 the Upper Mississippi, which latter formed the basis of the work on 

 the Fishes in the preceding second volume of this report, by Messrs. 

 Newberry and Wortheu, we have been able to make only partial use 



