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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Early in the present season, however, an artificial exposure 

 along the banks of Oak Orchard creek directly south of Shelby, 

 Orleans co., was reexamined and found to contain evidence of 

 the Guelph fauna for which we had been diligently searching. 

 Here a channel has been cut through the natural rock bed of 

 the creek in the construction of a feeder for the Erie canal and 

 drainage way from the Oak Orchard swamp lying to the south, 

 and, taking the exposure at low water and before the vegeta- 

 tion had become profuse, it was practicable to make out the 

 succession of the dolomite series with clearness and also to 

 locate therein two horizons of the Guelph fauna, the lower of 

 which has proved remarkably prolific in organic remains and 

 these of extraordinarily interesting character, supplementing 

 very materially the knowledge we had already derived of this 

 fauna from its development in and about the city of Kochester. 

 It would appear from a closer analysis of these aggregations 

 that the upper Guelph horizon, which lies 30 feet above the 

 lower, is to be correlated with and doubtless is coextensive with 

 that at Kochester. Following this discovery, the attempt was 

 renewed to locate the horizon at other localities, specially in 

 the continuous section at Niagara Falls, and, though here the 

 section is essentially a vertical one and the rocks difficult 

 of access, the effort to locate these horizons in that section 

 proved successful. Similarly, at various localities from 

 Niagara Falls to Shelby near and south of Lockport, Gasport 

 and Middleport, the horizons were followed, and also west of 

 Shelby in the towns of Barre, Clarendon and Byron, at Claren- 

 don there being an exposure of considerable continuity. At 

 none of the localities, however, except at Shelby were the 

 horizons found to be fossiliferous except in the presence of an 

 occasional species of this characteristic fauna. The problems 

 presented by this fauna, both biologic and stratigraphic, have 

 been carefully studied and are embodied in Memoir 5 of the 

 State Museum, which is now essentially printed, and to which 

 reference is made under another head. 



The fauna of the Naples beds. In order to help to a conclusion 

 a monograph now long standing, on the Naples fauna of the 

 Portage stage in western New York, one part of which 1ms 

 already been published, Mr D. D. Luther carried on investiga- 



