GEOLOGY OF THE WHITE SANDS OF NEW MEXICO 115 
place. The lower series we have called the Sandia series from 
the place where best seen. Some distance above the dark lime 
is a sandstone or conglomerate which is rather inconstant in 
thickness and may be absent, but which roughly marks the transi- 
tion to the permo-carboniferous as generally developed in all 
the ranges under consideration. This Coyote sandstone is partic- 
ularly well seen in the canyon of that name in the south end of 
the Sandias. Above this is the large series of massive gray and 
silicious lime at whose base it is usual to find a large form of 
Fusulina and, a little higher up, a well defined zone characterized 
by the bryozoa preserved on the faces of the cleavage slabs. 
Here begin the evidences of a transition to the Permian as indi- 
cated by the presence of Mekella_ striatocostata, Terebratula 
bovidens, Productus punctatus, and a variety of forms which are 
mingled with fossils also found in the carboniferous below. At 
the top of the gray lime is a large series of coarse, red quartzites 
and sandstones interbedded with dark earthy limestones and 
shales. There are few fossils except petrified wood and the few 
found still preserve a carboniferous habitus. This Manzano 
series is everywhere in evidence where a sufficiently high horizon 
is reached but is often removed from the crests of the range 
while it occurs in the eastern faulted extension. Following this 
is the group of red quartzites, sandstones, shales, and marls which 
we have recognized as the equivalent of the ‘‘red series’”’ of 
Texas and Kansas. Three divisions can be made out in all parts 
of the territory examined which have been named frem their 
prevailing or characteristic color, though it is not to be supposed 
that the color mentioned is constant. The lower or ‘red bed”’ 
division still retains some bands of limestone or lime breccias, 
the latter being a very characteristic element. Some 500 feet 
may be estimated as the average thickness of this division and 
prior to the work recently done in the valley of the white sands 
we had no definite evidence as to the age of the entire division. 
We only knew that a narrow bed of quartzite near the base at a 
point east of the Sandia Mountains contained the well-known Per- 
mian forms such as Bekvellia parva, Myalina attenuata, Pleurophorus 
s 
