y, 
18 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
SHALES OF THE CHEMUNG Group, rrom OweGo, Tioga County, 
New York. 
While occupied with the investigation of some of the Massachusetts 
rocks above enumerated, in the autumn of 1875, I received a com- 
munication from George Sidney Camp, Esq., of Owego, N.Y., ex- 
_ pressing a suspicion that certain shales of the Chemung group of rocks, 
underlying the soil in that vicinity, must contain a noteworthy amount 
either of phosphoric acid or of potash. In response to my suggestion 
that I would be glad to have the rocks analyzed, Mr. Camp sent me 
a number of specimens of the shale and of fossils by which to identify 
its geologic position. It is plain, from the characters of these fossils, 
that most, if not all of the shales belong to the Chemung group of 
rocks, as Mr. Camp was himself well aware. ‘The localities of the 
specimens analyzed are described by Mr. Camp in the following 
terms : — 
‘‘T send you several specimens of what I suppose to be really the same 
thing. 
‘* A hill 500 or 600 feet high, stands immediately north of this village 
(Tioga), crowned by a public cemetery, and it is commonly designated 
as the ‘ Cemetery Hill.” McMasters Street and North Avenue unite at 
its western base, and from this base on a level with the street and almost 
immediately opposite the junction of these streets, I took specimen No. 3, 
marked ‘ W.end.’ From the southern face of the mountain, at an eleva- 
tion of about 300 feet above the first locality, and 100 or 200 rods easterly 
from it, I took Nos. 2 and2*. No.4isa specimen of a great deal of the soil 
of which the mountain is composed ; 7.e., simply the disintegration of these 
rocks. Nos. 2 and 2* were taken from Parker’s quarry. The rocks from 
the same ledge, the courses of which consist more largely of sand, are 
taken for the cellars in this village. No.1 is from Baker’s quarry, at 
the same elevation as No. 2, but 50 rods further east, and apparently a 
continuation and outcropping of the same ledge. I took the specimens 
from the ledges and not from the debris. The more sandy layers contain 
very large quantities of fossils and some bits of fossil wood, of which the 
grain and characteristic marks are all obliterated. I send you one speci- 
men,t however, which is not at all like those I have just referred to, but 
is found in, or in the immediate vicinity of, the Parker quarry. Ina 
depression of the same mountain where it is worn by a stream to the level 
of the ledge from which specimen No. 3 was taken, but about three quar- 
ters of a mile further north, was taken another specimen of fossil wood, 
which has been figured in the Natural History Survey of the State.” 
t The fossil here in question seemed to Professor Shaler to belong to the so- 
called millstone grit rather than to the Chemung group; and he suggests that 
some patches of the grit may perhaps crop out in the locality. 
