This material had been dumped near the Lockport Dry Dock along the north side of the canal in the Lowertown area between the two branches of 18-Mile Creek that come out of the canal at that point. Seen on the left is a primitive attached echinoderm of the family Caryocrinites. This family lived from the middle Ordovician-Middle Silurian period. This is a relatively rare fossil found in this condition. This of the starfish family and lived attached to a stalk with a root structure buried in mud.
Crinoids still live in deep seas today.
The specimen at the left is a pretty typical Trilobite which is a sub-group of a group of animals called Arthropods. Arthropods are invertebrates of highly varied form, distinuished primarily by a segmented organization of hte body and the possession of a hardened external covering with no backbone. The specimen in the collection was found along the north bank of the Erie Barge Canal system at Lockport near the Dry Dock area in Lowertown. It was recovered about 1959 from rock debris that had been removed digging the new larger locks in about 1910. The specimen shown is of the family Dalmanites.