50 The American Geologist. 
July, 1905 
described by Dr. Kindle and accompanied by lists of fossils of the 
various faunules. The above is followed by a series of short 
articles, among which may be mentioned "Correlations," "The Rens- 
selaeria fauna," "The black shale and its fauna," "The upper De- 
vonian faunas of the middle Appalachians" and a "List of diagnostic 
Chemung species" by professor Williams. In part II. the descrip- 
tions of the sections in central and northern Pennsylvania are 
mainly by Dr. Kindle; but the formational and faunal correlation 
is considered much more fully than in the preceding part by both 
Kindle and Williams. 
These two papers have recently been reviewed by professor 
Schuchert* who considered critically the lower Devonian, or the 
Helderbergian and Oriskanian series. It appears that similar notes 
concerning the middle and upper Devonian, to which this review 
will be largely restricted, might be of value. 
Professor Schuchert seems inclined to question the identification 
of Anoplotheca acutiplicata from the black shale near Covington 
and Hot Springs, Virginia. The writer considers that the identi- 
fication is probably correct, for the same species occurs near the 
base of the black shale or Marcellus member of the Romney forma- 
tion in western Maryland. The Maryland specimens were exam- 
ined by Dr. John M. Clarke so that no question can be raised re- 
garding their specific identity. From the occurrence of the above 
species and Anoplia associated with others which are "regarded as 
confined to the Marcellus shale of New York" professor Williams 
concludes "that the black shale was deposited in a thick mass in 
the Appalachian trough before the fauna of the Onondaga (Corni- 
ferous) formation was extinct." In connection with the above it is 
well to remember that the Onondaga fauna entered New York from 
the west and, generally, is supposed to have reached no farther 
south than northeastern Pennsylvania. Dr. Clarke has shown that 
"early Marcellus deposits in eastern New York were * * * con- 
temporaneous with late Onondaga deposits in western New York.'f 
On page 45 of the Bulletin professor Williams speaks of the 
Romney formation as though it were composed entirely of black 
shale and this idea is expressed by him more distinctly in the 
second paper under consideration. The term Romney formation 
was first published by Mr. Darton in 1892 in this journal and was 
applied to the rocks in the vicinity of Romney, a town scarcely 15 
miles south of the Potomac river in Hampshire county in the north- 
ern part of West Virginia. It is located within the Potomac basin 
and there is very slight change in the lithology or fauna of the 
deposits in western Maryland to Which this name has subsequently 
been applied. The writer has shown that both on lithological and 
faunal grounds the Romney formation of northern West Virginia 
and western Maryland may be divided into two members. The 
lower one is composed principally of fissile black shale, weathering 
* Am. Jour. Sci., «tn Ser., Vol xix, June. 1905. pp. 460-463. 
t N. Y. State Museum, Bull. 25, 1905, p. 668. 
