1894.] ^iO [Lyman. 



These lists probably show satisfactorily that there is no serious paleon- 

 tological obstacle to accepting the views here set forth in regard to the 

 New Red ; certainly none to compare in seriousness with the obstacles 

 that were boldly overridden repeatedly in making the Portland and New- 

 ark fossils Triassic. 



Although the account just given puts quite another face upon the New 

 Red with tlie unquestionably great thickness in Pennsylvania, and the 

 partly conjectural, but quite harmoniously corresponding, condition of 

 the beds in other States, yet it is clear that what is most extraordinary 

 about the present views, so far as they are speculative, is that, for New 

 Red speculations, they are so little extraordinary, so free from extrava- 

 gance, so natural, probable and simple, yet so fully capable of explaining 

 all the observed facts. It is seen that, although the New Red beds do not 

 everywhere exist in the same completeness as in Montgomery county, 

 yet that certain portions are pretty fully represented in distant States, the 

 lower third in Connecticut, the lower half in Northeastern New Jersey, 

 and the lower portions and upper portions in separate basins in Virginia. 

 It is further plain that almost all, if not quite all, the fossils from which 

 the Rhaetic, or Triassic, or Jurassic age of our New Red has been 

 inferred, come from the Gwynedd shales alone ; and that the few fossils 

 from other parts of the whole New Red series have either been useless as 

 indications of age or have been flatly disregarded. Hence it is not 

 improbable that the Norristown shales, with the great calamite near 

 Doylestown, the apparent Lepidodendron at Newark and Belleville, and 

 the Palieophycus at Portland, may after all prove to be at least as old as 

 the Permian. It seems, indeed, highly probable that the well-ascertained 

 great thickness of 27,000 feet in Montgomery county should represent 

 more than one limited paleontological period, and not only that it should 

 include the Permia'n, but that the very extensive upper third of that 

 space, hitherto almost devoid of reported fossils, should turn out to be 

 much newer than the Triassic. Those upper beds have also shown here 

 and there imperfect fossil traces, and as there are occasional beds of green 

 shales among the predominant red ones, there is reason to hope that more 

 abundant and perfect fossils may some day be found. 



As for the trap, it seems impossible to doubt any longer that all the 

 conformable trap sheets are overflows contemporaneous with the sedi- 

 mentary beds, and not subsequent intrusions. 



It is furthermore at any rate evident that thoroughly geological meth- 

 ods, as distinguished from purely paleontological ones, are of great 

 importance in working out the geology, that is, the structure, the cross- 

 sections, the columnar section and the outcrops of any region, but espe- 

 cially of one where fossils are scarce ; and that the topography is extremely 

 useful as an aid to understanding the geologj'. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL08. SOC. XXXIII. 145. 2 B. PRINTED JUNE 16, 1894. 



