128 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



section below the Bed-Beds, from the Late Carbonic per- 

 iod, and the finding of the Great Guadalupan series 

 yonnger than any other Paleozoic rocks, excepting the 

 Red-Beds perhaps, on the continent, calls especial atten- 

 tion to Girty's pregnant suggestion that it does not seem 

 necessary to regard Russian Permian deposition as the 

 last chapter in the Paleozoic history. It is a fact long 

 known to paleontologists that from a strictly faunal view- 

 point the original Permian fossils are still distinctly 

 Paleozoic in all of their facies. There is little to herald 

 the immediate appearance of a new Mesozoic era. Should 

 the Guadalupan series prove to be younger than any yet 

 discovered Paleozoic strata Shumard's discovery will 

 have an added interest. 



Shumard numbered 54 species of fossils, 26 of which 

 were previously undescribed, among his collections from 

 the Guadalupe mountains. The prolificy of marine life 

 in this region is clearly indicated by the fact that Girty 

 recently enumerated more than six times as many species 

 as did his predecessor in the field. 



The recognition of the great Guadalupan section has 

 an important bearing upon the proper interpretation of 

 our own local geology of Missouri. Than the instance 

 of Shumard's discovery in a distant land I know of no 

 better example of the intimate and dependent relation- 

 ship of all phases of scientific knowledge. In Missouri 

 we have probably not sufficient data ever to be able to 

 determine definitely whether or not there exist rocks 

 equivalent to the Permian section of the general geologic 

 column, as has sometimes been claimed. The Guadalu- 

 pan fauna now sets all doubts aside and proves beyond 

 peradventure that there is no part of the Missouri rock- 

 section that we can even hope to find to be of Permian 

 age. 



When, after sifting all the available evidence, both pub- 

 lished notes and in the field, after visiting most of the 

 leading localities, and after critically inspecting the origi- 

 nal Permian rocks of the Urals, I ventured, more than a 



