Ijosal Line of the < 'arhoid/'froiiK. — Kei/f'x. 383 
It will be recalled that Marion and Pike counties, Missouri, at 
Hannibal, Louisiana and Clarkesville principall3',were the leading 
localities for a large proportion of the • 'Kinderhook" fossils 
originally described by Shumard, Hall, White and Winchell. And it 
has been noted that most of these fossils have a very decided 
Devonian aspect: that they give a peculiar tone to the fauna 
of these beds. 
Heretofore little mention has been made concerning the exact 
horizon of the fossils in question, since reference to the ' -litho- 
graphic" limestone or ''Kinderhook' beds has been considered 
sufficient. Lately, however, extensive collections of fossils have 
been made at all three of these places just mentioned as well as- 
many intervening and neighboring exposures. Everywhere the 
"lithographic," or Louisiana, limestone has been found to be 
practically devoid of organic remains except an occasional form 
in the thin sand partings above the bottom layer which is less- 
than one foot in thickness. 
At the very base of the limestone is a thin seam of buff, sand}^ 
shale seldom over three or four inches in thickness (number 7 of 
section). 
This seam is highly fossiliferous. It contains the Frodnrtdla 
py.viddtii (Hall), CyrtliKi <iriifirostris (Shumard), (Uiont'tes ornata 
(Shumard), Sjn-ifera hunui/xihiisis {Qh.um.aix\), and a host of other 
forms, many indistinguishable from species occurring in undoubted 
beds of western Hamilton. The sandy seam is underlaid In' six 
feet of dark argillaceous shale which has been regarded as part of 
the Devonian "black shale" of the Mississippi basin. This in 
turn rests upon 15 feet or more of l)uff, magnesian limestone and 
oolite of Niagara age probabh'. 
Lithologically the thin .sandy layer is more closely related to 
the underlying shales than to the overlying limestone. Fauuall}' 
it has very much closer affinities with the western Hamilton (De- 
vonian) than with the Kinderhook (lower Carboniferous). 
In Iowa the "Devonian aspect" of the Kinderhook fossils has 
disappeared largely, since Calvius recent discovery that the 
"Chemung " sandstones of Pine creek, in Muscatine county, are 
in realitj' true Devonian. In Missouri the same I)evoni:ui fades 
of the fauna contained in the lowest member of the Carbonifer- 
ous is lost from view completely by eliminating the species found 
in the tliin sandy scam at the base of the Lonisiann.or litliogrnphic. 
