REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1923 IEE AL 
WRN ONG SEE a(S Ha URICN EAU NA DN CHIN TRATE 
NEW YORK 
BY H. N. EATON 
While pursuing field studies on the Baldwinsville, N. Y., quad- 
rangle, directly west of Syracuse, in 1922 the writer found a 
fauna in the Vernon red shale. The discovery is important as no 
fossils have been found in the Vernon shale in central New York 
and also because of the strange association of the fossils with casts 
of crystals of rock salt in a formation evidently produced under arid 
conditions. 
Occurrence and stratigraphy. The fossils were found in an 
outcrop along a state highway in Elbridge township, 14% miles 
west-northwest of Syracuse, and 2 miles east of the village of 
Jordan. The road runs along the base of a low escarpment of 
shale hills on the southern side of the east-west channel occupied 
by the Erie canal and two main railroad lines. 
The fossiliferous horizon occurs in the Vernon red shale, 13 
feet stratigraphically below the contact with the Camillus shale 
formation. The bed consists of two parts: an upper layer 
of buff colored clay giving a strong reaction for lime, 4%4 inches 
thick; and a lower drab colored layer, 9 inches thick. 
Characteristic of the upper layer are several small cavities vary- 
ing’in size to a maximum of more than I inch in diameter, lined 
with crystals of aragonite. A few molds of salt hoppers occur 
sparingly in this upper layer closely associated with fossils. The 
term “hopper” has been applied to a cast in the shale assumed 
to be pseudomorphic after original halite. They are common in 
the Camillus shale in the Syracuse region and have been reported 
by Hopkins*. In the lower layer near the contact with the under- 
lying red shale several hoppers were found. Small flakes of specu- 
lar hematite occur rarely in the Vernon formation, and in one 
instance on the face of one of these hoppers. 
Fauna. The fossils including old and new forms are listed 
below. They have been deposited in the New York State Museum 
at Albany. 
Leperditia scalaris (Jones) 
Calymene? niagarensis Hall 
Phragmoceras sp. 
1 Hopkins, T. C. The Geology of the Syracuse Quadrangle, N. Y. State 
Mus. Bul. 171, 1914, p. 32-33. 
