78 CONTRIBUTIONS TO DEVONIAN PALEONTOLOGY. [bull.241 
FORMATIONAL CORRELATION OF CATAWISSA SECTION. 
By H. S. Williams. 
The Catawissa section was chosen for special investigation because 
of its central position and because it has been adopted as a standard 
section in the interpretations of the geology of this and several adja- 
cent counties. In Rept. G 7, I. C. White used it as a standard. The 
State geologist, J. P. Lesley, after consulting James Hall, of New 
York, concerning the points involved, allowed the paleontological facts 
to stand as reported. Criticism of the value of paleontology rather 
than of the correctness of the statements resulted from the confusion 
between the stratigraphy and the paleontology/' 
The 10-foot bed of red shales (No. 89 of section, on. p. 239 of Rept. 
G 7) was made the base of the Chemung-Catskill. On the north side 
of the river the same bed is recognized as No. 41 of the Rupert and 
Catawissa section. b I. C. White made the following statement: 
The reader will understand that the top of the Chemung has been fixed by me in 
the district at the base of the lowest red bed, and that all rocks below this, down ttf 
the top of the Hamilton, will be described under the name of Chemung, since I have 
found it impracticable to separate the Portage from the Chemung by any well-defined 
characters that will apply throughout the district, although it is very probable that 
800 / -l,000 / of the beds in the lower part of the group are the equivalent of the 
Portage beds in New York. 
The following section taken along the south bank of the Susquehanna Rivel 
beginning at the eastern end of the bridge across the latter stream at Rupert exhibits 
the distribution of the fossils in the Chemung. c 
The identification of the fossils was upon the authorit} 7 of Professor 
Clay pole. In discussing the Catawissa section, I. C. White gives the 
following reasons for adopting this basis of classification: 
There comes at the bottom of the Catskill a series of rocks having such a mixture 
of Catskill and Chemung characters that it seems impossible to determine precisely 
the lower limits of the former, or the upper of the latter; and to bridge over the 
difficulty I have thought best to classify these transition beds as an intermediate 
Catskill-Chemung group. 
The base of the Catskill series, as limited in this report, has been placed at the 
horizon where the scales, teeth, and bones of Holoptychius make their first 
appearance."' 
Some geologists would doubtless cut off the Catskill at the base of No. '22 [of the 
Catawissa section] and place all the underlying portion of the section, 700' thick, 
in the Chemung, because some shells of Chemung type occur in these beds; but 
since more than 1,000 / of red beds underlie the first bed, No. 54, at the bottom of the 
section, I prefer the conclusion that a few of the Chemung shells lived on. in this 
region at least, far into the Catskill period. <> 
aSee Second Pennsylvania Geol. Survey Kept. G 7, prefatory letter, see. 24_p. xix; also p. 63, etc. 
b Ibid., pp. 63-64. o Ibid., pp. 67-68. d Ibid., p. 54. e Ibid., p. 59. 
