G 
ON TIIE FOSSIL FOOT-MARKS 
“ coal formation ” being classed with the transition or secondary rocks, says, “ this has 
always been debateable ground. (N. Y. Reports, p. 13.) And farther on, when speaking 
of the coal-bearing rocks, he says they commence “ at the top of the Devonian or the Old 
Red Sandstone and Catskill group.” (p. 14.) 
It was not until the meeting of the American Association of August last, that I was 
aware of there being a doubt in the mind of any American geologist of the Old Red Sand¬ 
stone of Europe having its analogue in the United States. Professor Rogers then re¬ 
marked, that he “ did not admit the red sandstone of this epoch to be the Old Red Sandstone 
of Europe,” and he denied that “ the Old Red Sandstone existed in the United States at all.” 
This opinion is at variance with that of all the American geologists, so far as I know, 
and that of the two most distinguished European geologists who have examined, with 
great care, the extended palaeozoic strata of the United States, Verneuil and Lyell.* 
The latter, in his Travels, (vol. 2, p. 255, and in his Map,) makes the Tully limestone 
(No. 25,) the Genesee slate, (No. 26,) Portage group, (No. 27,) and Chemung group, 
(No. 28,) to embrace the Devonian period. And in another place he says, when de¬ 
scribing the Tioga coal field, that “beneath the millstone grit are those red and gray 
sandstones already alluded to, as corresponding in mineral character, fossils and position 
with our “Old Red.” (Vol.i., p. 62.) Verneuil embraces a wider extent for the Devonian, 
and begins it with the Oriskany sandstone, (No. 18,) and terminates with the Catskill 
group, (No. 29.) This wide range includes Formations 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Penn¬ 
sylvania Survey. And in regard to the high authority of the palaeontologist of the New 
York Survey, M. Verneuil says, “we have had occasion to recognise the exactness of the 
observations of this able geologist, and we only differ from him in opinion upon the age 
and the true equivalents of the black bituminous shales and of the principal mass of the 
micaceous sandstones which overlie them in the states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.” 
(Am. Journ., vol. v., p. 182.) Mr. Hall says, the Devonian system “comprises the five 
superior groups of the Helderberg division, the six groups of the Erie division, and the 
Old Red Sandstone.” (Am. Journ., vol. 5, p. 366.) And he farther says, “It is incontesta¬ 
ble that the red sandstone which forms its superior part, and which is so powerful on the 
frontiers of the states of New York and Pennsylvania, is upon the same horizon as the 
Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and Wales.” (p. 367.) 
* M. Verneuil, in his Memoir “sur la Parallelisme ties Depots Paleozoi'ques,” places the Catskill group 
(which he designates as No. 28, but which is really No. 29 of Mr. Hall’s Table,) in the Devonian system, and 
calls it “Vieux gres rouge.” Alter his remarks on Nos. 26 and 27 of the New York Reports, he says, “Pour 
terminer cette revue rapide de la serie paleozoique de l’fitats de New York il ne nous reste qu’a dire quelques 
mots ties masses puissantes tie vieux gres rouge qui forment les montagnes de Catskill, et qui, se prolongeant le 
long de frontieres de la Pennsylvanie penetrent dans l’interieur de cet £ tat. . . . ou l’on trouve quelquefois des 
fragments de poissons analogues a ceux du vieux gres rouge d’Ecosse et de Russie tels que l’Holoptichus 
noblissimus.” (page 17.) 
The able palaeontologist, Mr. Sharpe, who examined, compared and tabulated the palaeozoic fossils taken from 
this country by Sir Charles Lyell, considers the Old Red Sandstone of the “ New York system to close with the 
Chemung group, which is surmounted by a formation of sandstone, considered identical with our Old Red Sand¬ 
stone.” (Proceedings Geol. Soc., vol. 4, p. 155.) 
