148 



Report of the State Geologist. 



Itliaca and Oneonta formations of the Chenango valley, which is only fifty 

 feet less than the thickness of the lower Portage, Ithaca and upper Portage 

 in the vicinity of Ithaca, consequently the position of the Oneonta formation 

 is nearly in line with the upper Portage of the Ithaca section, and the 

 Portage sandstones of the Naples and Genesee sections. Clarke has advanced 

 this correlation and stated " that these Oneonta beds (including the barren 

 grey sands and flags lying beneath the red and green shales and sands) are 

 the eastern representative of the upper sandstones and flags originally desig- 

 nated by Professor Hall as the ' Portage sandstones,' and are hence the sedi- 

 mentary equivalent of the typical Portage.' 1 1 



Oxford. 



Along the Chenango river valley to the southwest of Norwich is Oxford 

 township. Except along the immediate valley of the Chenango river in the 

 northern part of the township where the Ithaca formation occurs and in the 

 southeastern part where the Chemung is found, the township is covered by 

 locks of the Oneonta formation, and its geology was so fully described by 

 Professor Clarke in the Thirteenth Annual Report, that little remains to 

 be said. 



XLI A}. The farthest south that the Ithaca formation was noticed, is 

 a characteristic outcrop of shales containing plenty of fossils along the side 

 of Fly Meadow creek, near the highway one and one-half miles northeast of 

 Oxford village. 



XLI Nearly three miles northeast of Oxford village in the north- 



eastern corner of the township is Lyon brook, across which is the noted 

 Lyon brook bridge of the New York, Ontario and Western railroad. The 

 bridge is 161 feet above the bed of the stream, and has an altitude of 1,197 

 feet A. T. In the bed of the brook beneath the bridge, as well as north of 

 the highway to the east of the bridge, are bluish shales, in which a few 

 rather poorly preserved fossils occur. Small lamellibranchs are the most 

 common. This locality was studied by Dr. C. E. Beecher, Dr. J. W. Hall, 

 and Mr. C. E. Hall, who reported " fyirifer mesastrialis, Paracyclas Ivrata, 

 and Palwoiu ih> mnta " from these shales, which were stated to be "below the 

 red shales which occur about two hundred feet higher in the series." 2 This 

 outcrop is in the upper part of the fossiliferous portion of the Ithaca forma- 

 tion. On the south side of the brook and about sixty feet higher, a quarry 



1 Thirteenth Animal Report State Geologist [New York], p. 557. See also similar statement near the middle of p. 555 and the 



section on p. 556 



'■i Fifth Annual Report State Geologist [New York], 1H8H. p. 11 ; ere page I for credit. 



