110 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



observations, but had used names of his own instead of 

 those previously suggested in manuscript. Meek had just 

 left Hall's laboratory in Albany as the result of a quarrel 

 about the proper draughting of some of the fossils for the 

 latter's New York report. Intense rivalry had also now 

 arisen between Hall and Meek and Worthen as to who 

 should first describe the new fossils which were, about 

 1860, being discovered in the rich fields along the Mississippi 

 river in Hlinois and the neighboring states. 



Thus in considering the beginnings of the Kinderhook 

 controversy there is a certain element of biased judgment 

 which has to be eliminated. Many misstatements of fact, 

 many misquotations of contemporaneous opinion, and 

 many misinterpretations of published work appeared in 

 the first paper by Meek and Worthen on the Kinderhook. 

 No doubt the intention of the Illinois authors was to pre- 

 sent the facts as they thought they really were, but with 

 glasses somewhat colored, enthusiasm born of new dis- 

 coveries, and jealous rivalry, they evidenced a haste that 

 was not customary with these usually very careful 

 workers. 



But aside from the shortcomings just mentioned there 

 appears to be far more important factors that were over- 

 looked in the proposal of the group Kinderhook and the 

 assigning of it all to the Carboniferous. Meek and Worthen's 

 conclusions were far too sweeping. The triple membered 

 Chemung of Swallow had not all been examined by the 

 authors mentioned. To them practically only the upper 

 member had yielded fossils. The Vermicular (Hannibal) 

 shales and the Lithographic (Louisiana) limestone was 

 admittedly barren of organic forms, except half a dozen or 

 more species and almost as few individuals, which had been 

 found at the very base of the formation. 



Meek had already studied in Missouri only the fossils 

 from the typical Chouteau; and had come to regard them 

 as Carboniferous forms. At Burlington fossils had been 

 collected from the Kinderhook only near the base of the 

 Burlington limestone. At the type locality of Kinderhook 



