72 ENVIRONMENT OF VERTEBRATE LIFE, ETC. 



appear as we pass upwards, and with the exception of the Washington coal, are 

 never more than I or 2 feet thick, while the uppermost 200 or 300 feet contain 

 none at all. This diminution of the coal is accompanied with a great loss in the 

 amount of plant life." 



In the report by Fontaine and White 1 on the Permian flora of Pennsyl- 

 vania and West Virginia, there is a statement as to the red beds of the Upper 

 Barren Measures (Dunkard) : 



"The upper half of the series is quite variable in the character of its strata. 

 In some places we find it containing a great deal of massive sandstone, with drab, 

 argillaceous beds, mainly incoherent shales. At other points, we find on the 

 same horizon, several hundred feet of red shales, often mottled with green, buff, 

 or yellow spots, and streaks. Toward the south, the red and variegated shales 

 increase in thickness and descend lower in the series, sometimes even nearly to 

 the horizon of the Waynesburg coal. The red shales are quite inconspicuous in 

 Marshall County, and in the 600 feet of strata shown at Bellton we find about 

 400 feet of red shales, not in a single bed, but in several beds, from 40 to 60 

 feet thick, alternating with brown sandstones or drab-colored shales. 



"The Waynesburg sandstone, the rock which forms the base of the series, 

 is an important stratum, since its physical character denotes plainly a great 

 change in the conditions which had prevailed for a long period previous to the 

 time of its formation. As has been previously stated, these conditions were 

 quiet subsidence, and deposition of fine shales, with much limestone. But in 

 the sandstone now described we find many evidences of strong currents, which 

 tore up the previously formed coal, and brought in a vast amount of coarse 

 material. The approach of this unquiet condition of things is indicated in the 

 structure of the Waynesburg coal itself." 



The suggestion made and defended by I. C. White in the articles quoted 

 above is strengthened by the discovery in these places of vertebrate fossils 

 closely related to or suggesting the vertebrate fauna of the Texas and 

 Oklahoma beds: 



(i) The discovery of reptiles and amphibians in the Pittsburgh red 

 shale by Raymond. 2 (2) The discovery of Pareiasaurus (?) henneni White, 

 200 feet below the Pittsburgh coal and the base of the Monongahela series, in 

 West Virginia. 3 (3) The discovery of an Edaphosaurus spine in the Wash- 

 ington shales at the base of the Dunkard series, near Elba, Ohio. 4 This 

 discovery is from a higher horizon than the others and within the limits of 

 the Permian as commonly recognized, but at its very base and from red 

 beds similar in character to those carrying vertebrates in the middle of the 



1 Fontaine, W. M., and I. C. White, The Permian or Upper Carboniferous Flora of West 



Virginia and Southwestern Pennsylvania, Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, 

 Report of Progress PP, p. 25, 1880. 



2 See Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub. No. 207, p. 84, 1915. 



3 Case, E. C., Notes on the Possible Evidence of a Pareiasaurus-like Reptile in the Cone- 



maugh Series of West Virginia, Braxton and Clay County Report, Geological Survey 

 of West Virginia, p. 817, 1917. 



4 Stauffer, C. B., Divisions and Correlations of the Dunkard Series of Ohio, Bull. Geol. 



Soc. Amer., vol. 27, p. 88, 1915. 



