46 
GEOLOGY OF THE FOURTH DISTRICT. 
Lake Ontario has recently occupied all that part of the district north of the Ridge road, the 
soil is not as evenly distributed or as uniform in character as it otherwise would have been. 
Slight elevations of sand, or sandbars, have accumulated in many places, and argillaceous ma¬ 
terials at intervening points. The surface, therefore, presents all varieties from a light sand 
to a heavy clay loam, or gravelly loam. The drifted materials which occupy a considerable 
portion of the surface in Wayne county, are mostly of loose gravel and sand. 
Organic Remains of the Medina Sandstone. 
In this rock, like all others colored by the red oxide of iron, fossils are rare, and through¬ 
out the greater part of the first and third divisions, the only fossil remains are Fucoides. In 
the lower division few of these have been found ; mostly in fragments, and in such a condi¬ 
tion as would indicate their partial destruction before being imbedded, or their subsequent 
absorption by the matter of the rock. The green threads and spots, probably due to some 
organic nucleus, disclose nothing by which its nature can be ascertained, and we are left to 
conjecture as to what may have been their origin. 
In the third division of the rock two species of Fucoides abound in great perfection, the 
F. Harlani and the F. auriformis. These are always attached to the under surfaces of the 
layers, and rest upon a bed of shale, as if they had grown upon the clayey bottom, and been 
buried by the first succeeding deposition of sand. The first named species is very abundant, 
often covering with its beautiful articulated branches the surface for many feet in extent. 
The other species is also abundant in many places. 
5. 
Figs. 1 and 2. Fucoides Harlani. 
