84 A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



in Russia that the Permian has been distinguished from 

 the Triassic. This view of Owen 's was not only correct 

 for Russia but even more so for the Alps and for India, 

 and it has taken a great deal of work and discussion to 

 fix upon the disconformable contact that distinguishes 

 the Paleozoic from the Mesozoic in these areas. In 

 other words, there was here at this time no mountain 

 making. Then Owen goes on to state that because the 

 Permian of Europe has reptiles, he sees in them decisive 

 Mesozoic evidence. '* These are certainly strong argu- 

 ments in favor of placing, not only the Permian, but also 

 the Carboniferous group in the Mesozoic period, and ter- 

 minating the Paleozoic division with the commencement 

 of the coal measures." To this harking backward the 

 geologists of the world have not agreed, but have fol- 

 lowed the better views of Murchison and his associates. 



In 1855 G. G. Shumard discovered, and in 1860 his 

 brother B. F. Shumard (1820-1869) announced, the 

 presence of Permian strata in the Guadalupe Mountains 

 of Texas, and in 1902 George H. Girty (14, 363) con- 

 firmed this. Girty regards the faunas as younger than 

 any other late Paleozoic ones of America, and says: 

 "For this reason I propose to give them a regional name, 

 which shall be employed in a force similar to Mississip- 

 pian and Pennsylvanian. . . . The term Guadalupian is 

 suggested." 



G. C. Swallow (1817-1899) in 1858 was the first to 

 announce the presence of Permian fossils in Kansas, and 

 this led to a controversy between himself and F. B. Meek, 

 both claiming the discovery. It is only in more recent 

 years that it has been generally admitted that there is 

 Permian in that state, in Oklahoma, and in Texas. This 

 admission came the more readily through the discovery 

 of many reptiles in the red beds of Texas, and through 

 the work of C. A. White, published in 1891, The Texan 

 Permian and its Mesozoic Types of Fossils (Bull. U. S. 

 Geological Survey, No. 77). 



Carboniferous Formations. The coal formations are 

 noted in a general way throughout the earliest volumes 

 of the Journal. The first accounts of the presence of 

 coal, in Ohio, are by Caleb Atwater (1, 227, 239, 1819), 

 and S. P. Hildreth (13, 38, 40, 1828). The first coal 



