128 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 
section below the Red-Beds, from the Late Carbonic per- 
iod, and the finding of the Great Guadalupan series 
younger 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 
