280 



Report of the State Geologist. 



The fossils are most abundant in the lower part of tlie upper layer. 

 Specimens of Goniatites Vanuasemi, which show the original adult shell to 

 have been from eight to twelve indies in diameter, are common; also orthoce- 

 ratites, two inches in diameter and a foot long, and mam other interest- 

 ing fossils. 



The limestone is slightly exposed on the hill east of Manlius village, 

 south of Eagle, but very much better in the southwest corner of the town of 

 Manlius, along the Jamesvijle turnpike. In a small ravine near the school- 

 house in District No. 8, at a fall about fifty rods from the road, the limestone 

 is well exposed, accessible, and very rich in fossils. It can be traced along 

 the ridge toward the west for nearly a mile, though this being a region of 

 flexures, it is easily lost sight of. 



It crops out near the highway a mile northwest from Onondaga hill, also 

 along the road between Loomis hill and Howlett hill. There are several 

 outcrops between Marcellns and the Onondaga valley near the Cedarvale 

 road, and also on the road between Marcellns falls and Marysville. 



Next above the Groniatite limestone is a bed of fissile shale or slate, 

 forty to fifty feet thick, black and ferruginous like that below, but not 

 calcareous, and very rarely containing a fossil. Irregularly disposed in this 

 bed, though more abundant at some horizons than others, are many large 

 concretions, some of them very symmetrical flattened spheres, while others 

 are elongated, nodular and frequently geodic sept aria. 



The shale above gradually loses its slaty* bituminous character, becoming 

 softer and more argillaceous, the color changing to a bluish grey, the concre- 

 tions smaller and less abundant. The change is so gradual that any line of 

 separation between the Marcellus shales and the Hamilton shales must be an 

 arbitrary one. It has been placed at 200 feet above the Corniferous lime- 

 stone, which is a liberal allowance for the thickness of the Marcellus. Neither 

 the limestones nor the shales are of appreciable economic value. 



All the experience of men who have spent time and money in the 

 vain search for coal in these beds has not even yet entirely destroyed the 

 belief that it exists in large quantities, the belief resting on the presence of 

 occasional thin seams of coaly remains of plant life, and the general carbon- 

 aceous appearance of the shales. 



The Hamilton shales and sandstones are the surface rocks over an 

 area equal t<> about one-third of the county — an area embracing the southern 

 parts of the towns of Pompey, Lafayette, ( biondaga, Marcellus and Skaneateles, 

 ami the northern parts of Fabius, Tully, Otisco and Spafford, and ex- 



