1883.] Lower Ponent ( Catskill) Group of Middle Pennsylvania. 275 
as the Catskill group is passed. But the Catskill group itself is 
a lifeless waste forming a complete break in New York and 
Pennsylvania between the Devonian and Carboniferous systems. 
Not a species, I believe, is known on both sides of it. The life 
of the Chemung in Pennsylvania died out and the life of the 
Lower Carboniferous came in, but the two faunas are distinct. 
All the Devonian groups are connected by numerous species 
passing up from the lower to the higher, and often forming a high 
percentage of their total contents. But at the top of the Che-- 
mung this passing upward ceases. Even the two or three species 
of Testacea, formerly supposed to belong to the group, have 
been removed from it by the reference of the beds in which they 
lie to the Chemung or Portage. 
It is worthy of notice that the equivalent beds in Great Britain 
have shown an almost equal poverty of organic remains. The 
Old Red Sandstone, or more properly speaking the Upper Old 
Red Sandstone (for it is incorrect to speak of the American Cats- 
kill as an equivalent of the whole of the Old Red Sandstone of 
England and Scotland), was for many years regarded as a desert, a 
and so remained until by the labors of Hugh Miller, Charles 
Peach, Thomas Dick, Louis Agassiz and others, it was peopled 
with a fauna of its own—a fish fauna—of immense size and 
unique character. Sir Charles Lyell in his Elements says (p. 
520): “For many years this formation was regarded as very 
barren of organic remains, and such is undoubtedly its character 
over very wide areas where calcareous matter is wanting, and 
Where its color is determined by red oxide of iron.” Even now 
the fauna of the Upper Old Red Sandstone is but scanty except 
in fish and plants; the few Testacea from the beds at Kiltorcan in 
Ireland, forming but a slight exception to the general rule. 
In regard to the poverty of the American Catskill, Professor 
all remarks in the Geology of N. York (4th district, p. 283): 
“Thus far we know little of the fossils of the Old Red.” 
_ And Mr. Vanuxem, speaking on the same subject says (Geol. 
of 3d district, p. 188) : 
aoe Sys which have been observed in this group, in this 
and ates s A are but few in number, the group being very barren, 
ennsylvania where the rock has considerable surface 
na And great thickness” ; 
leas : “Though shells and bones are rare in this group, 
appear to be much more numerous, accumulations existing 
