L96 V\ REPORT OF PROGRESS. E. W. OLAYPOLE. 



rock is exposed. It is soft mid consequently much disin- 

 tegrated by the weather. Lying as it does with other soft 

 beds between the two sandstones, the Oriskany and the 



Hamilton, it is generally covered with the wreckage that 

 has fallen from their slopes so that its detection is difficult. 



The Marcellns black shale, together with the Hamilton 

 lower shales, is usually much excavated by atmospheric 

 erosion and forms a deep valley lying alongside of the Ham- 

 ilton sandstone ridges which it accompanies in all their zig- 

 zagging course through the townships. An examination of 

 the map and sections will enable any one to follow its out- 

 crop without further explanation. 



This rock consists of thin, dark or nearly black layers of 

 shale, very smooth in most places but occasionally slightly 

 sandy. It so closely resembles the formation in New York 

 on the same horizon that even without fossils there would 

 be little difficulty in identifying the two. 



The best exposure of this rock in the township is in the 

 field adjoining Barnett's rocks directly south of New 

 Bloomlield. The beds are there nearly vertical and have 

 yielded no fossils. 



Another smaller one is in the syncline on the top of the 

 hill between New Bloomfield and Clark's mill, where I have 

 been told that the plow brings fragments to the surface. 



A third exposure occurs at the cross-roads between Lime 

 stone ridge and Buffalo hills on Dorran's run, where in the 

 search for ore many pieces of this rock were brought to the 

 surface. These on examination yielded a few fossils a list 

 of which will be given elsewhere. 



A fourth exposure of these black shales occurs near the 

 ore works of the old Juniata furnace two miles east of New 

 Bloomfield. A double section is here made. The end of 

 the syncline coining west from Newport narrows gives the 

 black shale dipping both ways on both sides of the cross 

 road. Ou the south side it has been extensively excavated 

 in the search for ore but on the north side no attempt has 

 apparently been made t<> find the bed. 



