REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR, 1922 I51 
the Watkins quadrangle at Kendall. The Gowanda everywhere 
directly overlies the Dunkirk or its Canaseraga equivalent. From 
a maximum of over 500 feet on the Cattaraugus creek around 
Gowanda, the formation thins to scarcely half this amount on Lake 
Erie, while black shales (‘“‘Huron”)?? come to predominate. In 
this area it contains several recognizable horizons*®® that have not 
yet been satisfactorily followed east of the Cattaraugus. 
The Laona sandstone* succeeds the Gowanda beds. Rising from 
Lake Erie at Barcelona,’® this passes west through Brocton*® and 
south of Lamberton to Laona,*? thence above Forestville®* to Smith’s 
Mills Station and eastward, curving south into the Cattaraugus 
valley east of Perrysburg to near Dayton, where its continuity is 
lost under drift. In the Cattaraugus gorges its identity is still some- 
what uncertain, but it reappears in Erie county, on the north, in the 
highest exposures on Rice’s Hill west of Boston. A similar sand- 
stone in apparently the same horizon has been quarried south of 
Arcade,** and northwest of Elton*® with probable intervening 
exposures north?® and south of Springville and northwest of 
Delavan. The Laona must occupy other hilltops in southern Erie” 
and Wyoming”! counties and is likely to correspond to some one of 
the sandstones in the upper part of the Caneadea section,?* and thus 
to beds near the base of the Wellsburg sandstone** south of Elmira. 
As the Laona is usually petroliferous** to some degree it is doubtless 
an important oil-sand underground. 
For the beds between the Laona and Shumla sandstones*® the 
name Westfield shale may be used. Lithologically indistinguishable 
from the Gowanda beds, they contain like those, at the west, a per- 
sistent Portage cephalopod element in their fauna,*® yielding east- 
ward wholly to Chemung brachiopods. The thickness increases 
from about 120 feet on Lake Erie to 160 feet at Laona and perhaps 
200 feet near Perrysburg. East of the Cattaraugus these beds 
appear to maintain their identity as far as Elton,*® beyond which it 
is gradually merged in the Wellsburg member.*” 
 OlM® GS, alan Sere, Boil, 73, 3, Bizh Sig. 
*N. Y. State Mus. Bul. 60, p. 1025-26, fig. 13, p. 1028. 
“2d Ann. Rep’t (1838), p. 46. 5th Ann. Rep’t (1841), p. 177. N. Y. 
State Mus. Bul. 60, p. 1026. 
2 N.Y. S. Mus. Bul. 69, p. 1027. 
* Ibid. p. 1026-27. 
= Ur Sy Geol) Surv. Bull 41, pit52=55) 
~ 4th Ann. Rep’t (1840), p. 412, 470. 
» ibid. p. 166. Geol. of IN. Y., 4th Dist. p. 474. 
“U.S. Geol. Surv. Folio 169, p. 10, fig. 6 (field ed. p. 30, 76). 
* 5th Ann. Rep’t (1841), p. 177-78. Geol. of N. Y., 4th Dist., p. 407-98. 
*" N. Y. State. Mus. Bul. 60, p. 1027. 
