316 



Report of the State Geologist. 



forming, at the mouth of Little Buffalo creek, a stratum of impure limestone. 

 Shales of blue-grey color occupy the bed of the creek at intervals for three 

 or four miles to the eastward. 



Besides the outcrops of Stafford limestone already mentioned, there is a 

 disused quarry of that stone in the field northeast of South Buffalo station on 

 the Western New York and Pennsylvania railroad, and fragments of it were 

 thrown up in digging the sewer and water trenches on the Indian church 

 road, near Seneca street. The only places where the orthoceratite layers were 

 noticed are at Lancaster and Wende. Other exposures of Marcellus rocks in 

 the county are in the bed of Ellicott creek between Wende and Alden Center 

 and above Alden Center near the Erie gravel pit ; also in the southern branch 

 of the same creek north of Alden village. In Buffalo creek it is in sight at 

 intervals from the end of the Winchester road to within a mile of Blossom. 

 It occurs on Cazenovia creek, at the Park just above the Cazenovia street 

 bridge, and for some distance above the covered bridge two miles farther up 

 the creek. It was also found in laying the water pipes for South Park, 700 

 feet east of South Park avenue, at the city line, within two feet of the surface, 

 and in the bed of a small brook near by. At West Seneca, outcrops occur in 

 the bed of Smoke creek, between the White's Corners road and the Western 

 New York and Pennsylvania railroad, and again on the lake shore at Bay 

 View. From here it forms the lake bottom near the shore for several miles 

 up the lake. 



Hamilton and Genesee Shales. 



The transition from the Marcellus to the Hamilton shales is very 

 gradual, the shale changing from black to blue-grey through almost imper- 

 ceptible gradations. There is, however, in several places within the county, a 

 stratum always calcareous and usually much harder than the rocks below, 

 Which seems to furnish a boundary between the formations. 



A mile east of Alden, in the bed of the creek above the culvert is a layer 

 of impure limestone three and one-half inches thick. Below this, the rock is 

 a soft shale, having StyUola fissurella as its most conspicuous fossil, with an 

 occasional cephalopod. The layer of limestone is not very fossiliferous, and 

 has the appearance of some of the Marcellus rock. Less than six feet above 

 is a shale containing excellent specimens of Spirifcr m ncronatiis and Athyris 

 ypirifwoides. -lust above this is a concretionary layer, less than a foot thick, 

 containing characteristic Hamilton fossils, and immediately over the last a third 

 calcareous Layer, containing the usual Hamilton trilobites, orthoceratites and 

 brachiopods. 



