Frazer] ^-LO [May 18, 



Remarks on Mr. Lyman's Paper. 



By Dr. Persifor Frazer. 



The paper of Mr. Lyman is astonishing in the fact that it does not 

 mention the seven years' work by the Second Geological Survey of Penn- 

 sylvania on the New Red in York, Adams, Cumberland and Lancaster 

 counties ; although the method he advocates was the very method there 

 adopted, viz., the careful topographical and geographical plotting of tlie 

 region and the accurate location of every dip. There is neither justice 

 nor expediency in ignoring years of work by a colleague, especially when 

 one occupies a quasi directorship of the Survey under whose auspices the 

 work was done. 



From the section across the counties of York and Adams, from the 

 town of York to Dillsburg, made in 1875, careful descriptions of the 

 successive beds were made, as well as notes of their dip, and from these 

 data a column was constructed for correlation with the columns of the 

 Permian, Triassic and Jurassic in England and in Germany. In a paper 

 contributed to Vol. v. Trans. American Institute of Mining Engineers, 

 founded on the work done in 1874 in Southeast Pennsylvania, it was sug- 

 gested that the basal conglomerate of the New Red might find its ana- 

 logue in the magnesian limestone of England and the Zechstein of Ger- 

 many, both of which represent the top of the Permian in the respective 

 countries. 



The thickness of the strata calculated by H. D. Rogers from 'he Yard- 

 leyville-New Hope-Attleboro' section, and confirmed by the writer, was 

 51,500 feet, or 15.75 kilometers, but neither Prof. Rogers nor the speaker 

 believed that this represented the actual state of the case. It was stated 

 that the New Red seemed to extend from some point in the Permian, at 

 least, to the base of the Lias, including all the rocks attributed to the 

 Trias and the beds below it, except the lower Rothliegendes of the Ger- 

 man scale. 



It is added, in the same paper, as a matter of frequent remark that all 

 the beds of the "New Red " are not red. On the contrary, perhaps one- 

 half of the whole series presents to the eye a lead-gray and drab color. 

 It was suggested as possible that the black calcareous slates of Phojuix- 

 ville might represent a lower horizon than the coal-bearing belt (near 

 Ewingsville?) referred to in the catalogue of specimens of Report C, of 

 York county, for 1874. 



With reference to the subordinate position which paleontological should 

 bear to stratigraphical evidence, the case would seem to be not quite 

 fairly stated. If there were everywhere a complete column of strata of 

 which the mutual relations were unmistakable, then paleontological evi- 

 dence would be forced to conform itself to the column as best it might. 

 But the case is like that of the relation between the astronomical transit 

 and the compass, or the level and the barometer — the latter is invaluable 



