WILLIAMS AND 
KINDLE. 
CORRELATION OF OATAWISSA SECTION. 79 
The above quotations make it clear that I. C. White in 1883 accepted 
the first substantial red bed in the Devonian sections as the upper 
termination of the Chemung formation, and regarded the first fish 
bed with Holoptychius remains as the base of the true Catskill for- 
mation. For practical purposes (not fully approving it himself), he 
proposed to call the formations lying between these two zones the 
Chemung-Catskill. 
In this section are to be found the evidences which have been taken 
for the classification of the upper Devonian formations of central 
Pennsylvania in general, as given in the Second Pennsylvania report. 
A reference to the Prefatory Letter of Report G 7 will indicate the 
lature of the confusion introduced. In closing that letter the State 
geologist (J. P. Lesley) remarks: 
The startling fossil species of this report will therefore be regarded by the paleon- 
tologist ... as only provisionally verified; while they must certainly stimulate 
American geologists to a closer study, and especially to a microscopic study, of several 
)f our so-considered plainest and least ambiguous forms. a 
In the following year, 1884, a sharp controversy arose in section E 
)f the American Association for the Advancement of Science over the 
•estatement of one phase of the same problem — the claim that Spiri- 
fer mesistrialis and Spirifer disjunctus were found together in the 
;ame formation. It was at that time my good fortune to know the 
statement to be correct, because I had a rock specimen containing 
)oth species. But none of the geologists knew at that time the real 
ause of the difficulty. 
It was not known then that the first red bed could not be taken as 
he mark of the close of the Chemung formation, so long as Chemung 
tvas identified by marine fossils, and that the first fish beds did not 
>ccur uniformly at the same horizon in relation to the succession of 
narine faunas. 
I believe very few geologists at that time were ready to accept the 
proposition that fossils which were known to represent separate stages 
)f a continuous section in one region could actually occur together in 
he same zone of another section. The last remark of Professor Les- 
ey's letter has proved correct. The fossils which were of critical 
mportance were no doubt incorrectly labeled, and the conclusions 
vhich rested upon their identification were erroneous. This at least 
las been demonstrated by the recent study of the Catawissa section. 
The diagnostic Chemung fossil /Spirifer disjunctus, which was re- 
ported from three zones of the section below the first red bed and 
from four zones in the section on the north side of the river (the low- 
est of which is within 800 feet of the top of the Genesee), not only 
las not been found after special careful search of every foot of the 
"Second Pennsylvania Geol. Survey, Rept. G 7, p. xxvi. 
