TIIK RELATIONS OF SOME CARBONIFEROUS FAUNAS I9 



fossiliferous " Red Beds" which rest upon the meso-continental 

 Pennsylvanian rocks, an eventuality for which I am not altogether 

 unprepared since the limited fauna prescribed by Mr. Beede from 

 the "Red Beds" of Oklahoma^ has a distinctly younger and 

 more Asiatic facies than any of the previously known Pennsyl- 

 vanian faunal groups of the Mississippi valley. In that event 

 the " Permian " of this region would be far older than the typi- 

 cal Russian Permian. 



While the differences between our Western and Eastern 

 faunas have been more or less apparent to all, they have seldom 

 excited much comment, and, on the other hand, while compari- 

 son with the faunas of Europe and Asia has several times been 

 made, striking parallels have not been the result. Doubtless 

 incomplete and sometimes inexact acquaintance with the facts 

 has partially obscured the relations of these faunas to the able 

 investigators who have studied them, which large accessions 

 to our data regarding both areas in recent years have rendered 

 more and more conspicuous. 



In the fall of 1900 I collected in the Guadalupe Mountains a 

 fauna incompletely described 50 years ago by Shumard, which 

 presents strong analogies with faunas called "Permian" de- 

 scribed from the Salt Range of India, from the Carnic Alps, 

 and from Sicily, and in a corresponding degree differs from 

 those of central and eastern North America. 



A recent work by Tschernyschew," upon the Upper Carbonif- 

 erous of the Urals and Timan, illuminates the consideration of 

 the relations between the Carboniferous faunas of eastern 

 Europe and western America, and shows that the lower as well 

 as the higher faunas in the Trans-Pecos region are very analo- 

 gous to those beyond the sea, Tschernyschew recognizes 5 

 zones in the strata described by him, which have the following 

 succession, from below up : Spirifcr mosqiiensis zone, Spirifcr 

 inarcoiii zone, Omphalotrochiis xuhitneyi zone, Prodtictiis cora 

 zone, and Schivagerina zone. Omfhalotrochiis whitneyi is one 

 of the remarkable fossils of the McCloud limestone of the Cali- 



1 Oklahoma Geol. Surv., Adv. Bull., ist Bien. Rept., 1902. 

 2 Die Obercarbonischen Brachiopoden des Ural und des Timan; Comite Geo- 

 logique, Mem., vol. 16, No. 2, 1902. 



