'.id Tin American Geologist. Angnst, 189a 
Tlif great scarcity of fossils above alluded to which was for 
many years supposed to characterize the shale still holds in 
regard to all but a few forms. Lamellibranchs and Brachio- 
pods arc conspicuous by their absence. Crustaceans are 
unknown. No Crinoid has yet come to light. Corals, Polyzoa, 
Cephalopods and Gasteropods alike fail us in this wide ex- 
panse of ancient mud through which the auger descends in 
drilling at the rate of 100 to 150 feet a day, revealing only a 
monotonous variation of Inn — "black shale'* — "sandy shale" 
— "light shale" — "dark shale" — in beds so uncertain in thick- 
ness and interval that the exact comparison of records, even 
in adjacent boreholes, seems not yet possible. 
At two horizons, however, this almost utter sterility is 
pleasingly broken by richly fossiliferouB strata. The so-called 
"Huron Shale" of Newberry is well exhibited near Delaware, 
O., and to the perseverence and the hammer of the Rev. H. 
Hertzer it yielded a magnificent series of the remains of fossil 
fishes which were described by Prof . Newberry in the Palaeon- 
tology of Ohio, (Vol. I) where he thus speaks of the skill and 
patience of their discoverer : — 
"Our first knowledge we owe to the industry and acuteness 
of observation of the Rev. H. Hertzer, a clergyman stationed 
for two years at Delaware, Ohio, and who, while performing 
his ministerial duties and receiving a very small salary, found 
time to make many important collections and observations in 
geology. The Corriiferous at Delaware abounds in fossils 
and Mr. Hertzer collected a splendid suite of the ichthyolites 
which characterize this formation, but the Huron Shale had 
up to this time been regarded by all geologists as barren 
ground. Near its base it contains a great number of con- 
cretions of impure limestone sometimes ten or more feet in 
diameter. In examining some of these Mr. Hertzer discov- 
ered that they not infrequently contained masses of silicified 
wood or fragments of bones. Several of these were taken to 
the meeting of the A. A. A. S., at Buffalo, in 1866. They were 
submitted to me and I recognized them as the bones of huge 
ganoid fishes, altogether new to science. With enthusiasm 
fired anew by the interest which these specimens excited, Mr. 
Hertzer devoted all the time possible to further examinations. 
The rock is one of the most untractable known and Mr. 
