Geol— Vol. I.] SMITH— COMPARATIVE STRATIGRAPHY. 327 



The principal regions where Triassic faunas are known 

 are the Alpine region, the Himalayas and Salt Range, 

 northern Siberia, and western America. The faunas of 

 these countries seem to be so different that they may be 

 taken as representing ancient geographic regions. In Meso- 

 zoic times a sea stretched through southern Europe, east- 

 ward to the Himalayas ; this was years ago called by Neu- 

 mayr the " Central Mediterranean," and Suess has pro- 

 prosed for it the name Thetys, or more properly, Tethys. 

 Along the western borders of the Tethys were deposited 

 the Triassic sediments of the Alps, Spain, southern Italy, 

 the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Hungary, the Balkan Penin- 

 sula, and Asia Minor. This region was named by Mojsiso- 

 vics the Mediterranean Trias province. Most of the faunas 

 of the Trias, from near the base to the top, are represented 

 in this region. 



To the east the Tethys spread out to the waters of the 

 Indian region, in which the sediments of the Himalayas and 

 the Salt Range accumulated, bounded on the south by the 

 land mass of which southern India is but a remnant. The 

 Indian waters joined on the east and southeast with the great 

 Arctic-Pacific Trias ocean, or Arctis of Mojsisovics, along 

 the borders of which were deposited the sediments of 

 northern and eastern Siberia, Spitzbergen, Japan, Rotti, 

 New Zealand, New Caledonia, Peru, and western North 

 America. But in this ocean region there were many prov- 

 inces as yet unknown, or only vaguely defined. 



The open-sea Triassic deposits known at present may be 

 grouped in four geographic faunal regions, the Mediter- 

 ranean, the Oriental, the Arctic-Pacific, and the American. 



The Mediterrean Region. Triassic deposits of the Med- 

 iterrean region were described first from the Germanic 

 inland sea and the Alpine province, and afterwards from 

 the Pyrenees, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, southern Italy, 

 Hungary, the Balkan Peninsula, the Gulf of Ismid in Asia 

 Minor, and from near the mouth of the Araxes in Armenia. 

 In all these places the faunas are of the same general type, 

 but show provincial differences. This is especially true of 



(2) June 29, 1904. 



