ANTHRACOLITHIC ROCKS OF KANSAS 159 



pute as to the Carboniferous or Permian age of the Salt Range 

 Productus limestone and then says: 



This erroneous correlation [with the Upper Carboniferous] is based on the 

 exaggerated importance of numerous species of Brachiopoda which are common 



to both rock-groups [Carboniferous and Permian] I have examined 



large collections of Himalayan anthracolithic fossils, the descriptions of which 

 have not yet been published, and I am convinced now of the absolute impossi- 

 bility of basing any safe correlation on the evidence of brachiopods. I have 

 found that the majority of brachiopods considered hitherto as typical leading 

 fossils of Permian beds are distributed equally through Carboniferous and Per- 

 mian rocks. Foraminifera are far more important as stratigraphical evidence. 

 The fusulinae of the Productus limestone of the Punjab differ specifically from 

 those of the Russian Upper-Carboniferous rocks. So do the Ammonites, whereas 

 the brachiopod fauna undergoes but very little change between the two systems. 



I have recently prepared a paper on the brachiopod fauna of the Alpine 

 Bellerophonkalk. This is a stage, which from its stratigraphical position must 

 be placed rather high in the Permian system. In its brachiopod fauna truly 

 Carboniferous types, however, still predominate, thus proving the insufficiency 

 of brachiopods for exact correlations. ^ 



Mr. G. B. Richardson, Dr. J. W. Beede, and Mr. David White 

 presented papers, based on their field worli of last summer, at the 

 Boston-Cambridge meeting of the Geological Society of America 

 which prove the Permian age of the Kansas deposits which I have 

 referred to that system. The following abstract of Dr. Beede's 

 article on "The Correlation of the Guadalupian and Kansas Sections" 

 was published in the "Preliminary List of Papers" for that meeting: 



The Guadalupian limestones of western Texas and southern New Mexico 

 are overlain by the Pecos Valley Redbeds. These beds present the same litho- 

 logic features and are of similar succession as the Redbeds on the eastern side of 

 the Llano Estacado and carry a fauna closely related to them. The gypsums 

 appear to be the equivalents of the Greer gypsums as exposed in Oklahoma and 

 Texas. If this correlation is correct, then the base of the Capitan limestone is 

 on the same stratigraphic level, approximately, as the base of the Elmdale forma- 

 tion of Kansas and the base of the Guadalupian series on the level of the base 

 of the Cherokee shales. The five thousand feet of Hueco beds would fall below 

 this level. 



The same list also contained the following abstract of Mr. White's 

 paper on "Permian Floras in the Western 'Red Beds'": 



I Letter of November 24, 1909. 



