HAMILTON GROUP. 
161 
The third locality is in the road from Hamilton to 
Smyrna, where the two kinds of rock are seen, as well 
as the common fossils of Hamilton and of the shale of 
Handsome creek, the latter above the former. 
The fourth point of exposition is at the creek and 
quarry west of North New-Berlin, which do not differ 
from those near Sherburne, but the rock is coarser and 
harder. At this quarry, the plant figured in wood-cut 40 
was obtained. It is also found in other localities in this 
group, but the specimens or individuals are but few at 
each. The surface is smooth, with branches at irregular 
distances. Plants with similar external structure occur 
in the Catskill group under the coal of Pennsylvania, 
along the Susquehannah below Wilksbarre. 
In Onondaga county are many places for the examina¬ 
tion of the group, such as Buhr’s falls on the edge of the 
town of Cazenovia, not far from the village of Delphi. 
The water falls sixty-four feet in height, the shale pro¬ 
jecting at the falls like a huge buttress, which divides the 
water, and adds to the beauty of the falls. The shale is 
not of a fine kind, nor does it resist the action of the 
water. Fossils are very numerous at the falls. 
Pratt’s falls. These are to the northeast of the village 
of Pompey, on a branch of Limestone creek. The water 
falls over a few feet of the hard calcareous coarse shale, 
which abounds in the Flabella avicula, etc., and descends 
into a gulf of over one hundred feet in depth, excavated in 
the softer shale under the harder kind, in which fossils 
are numerous. 
A favorable locality for observing the succession of shales and harder rocks and their fossils, 
from the base to the upper rock of Pratt’s falls, is from the turnpike north, to Pompey village. 
The first rock seen in ascending the hill going south, is similar to the low bluff north of 
Levana, and contains the same fossils : next above it is what appears to be an orthis, which is 
flattened and deformed; then at a higher level are mineral and fossil products, not unlike 
those of Skaneateles ; and again at the last rise before ascending to the village, is a quarry of 
hard sandstone layers, with Flabella avicula, Erect avicula, Rugous cypricardite, etc., and 
some very round or ball-like accretions about three inches in diameter. 
Another locality is Tinker’s falls, on the edge of Cortland county, in the town of Fabius. 
The water falls over the Tully limestone, exposing a thickness of about fifty feet of shale, 
containing numerous fossils. For a few feet below the limestone, the shale is highly colored 
Geol. 3d Dist. 21 
