OCTOBEE 27, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



529 



conglomerate of Oneida County is the time 

 equivalent of the Upper Medina of the 

 Niagara section, and that both probably should 

 be united to the Clinton, while the lower 1,100 

 feet of the Medina of western New York may 

 possibly represent the continental or estuarine 

 phase of deposits, representing elsewhere the 

 later Richmond period. 



A satisfactory standard for the Lower Si- 

 luric is found in the island of Anticosti; and 

 although this belongs to another geographic 

 province of the Siluric seas, it represents far 

 more completely the progress of biologic de- 

 velopment than do the lower beds of the New 

 York Siluric or, for that matter, any other 

 Siluric beds deposited in the Siluric Mediter- 

 ranean ; unless the Mayville beds of Wisconsin 

 should prove to represent the lowest Siluric. 



To go, for a moment, outside of New York 

 state, the same argument applies to the sedi- 

 ments of the mid-Carbonics, or Pennsylvanian, 

 of eastern United States. Though now taken 

 as a standard for comparison, to which all 

 other Carbonic formations of North America 

 are referred, they are manifestly unfit for 

 this important position, not only because they 

 represent continental conditions, and do not 

 furnish us with a standard of marine sedi- 

 mentation, but because it is obviously impos- 

 sible to determine, at least with our present 

 means, how complete the series is. There may 

 be, and probably are, vast breaks in this series 

 of non-marine sediments, breaks which may 

 or may not be revealed in the floral succession. 

 A far more satisfactory standard, and one 

 more nearly comparable with the European 

 standard, is that furnished by the mid-Car- 

 bonic sediments of Arkansas, Missouri and 

 Kansas, or by those of Texas. When these 

 sediments and their marine faunas have been 

 fully studied we shall have a mid-Carbonic 

 standard worthy of the name; and when that 

 is accomplished — as we have good hopes that 

 it will be before long, judging from the re- 

 sults already achieved by the labors of the 

 earnest workers in those fields — then let us 

 hope that the inappropriate term Pennsyl- 

 vanian will be replaced by one more expressive 

 of the marine, sedimentation of that age. 



But I am not here to speak of the imper- 

 fection of the geologic record, an imperfection 

 which I think is more apparent than real, nor 

 of the imperfection of our classification, which 

 is more real than apparent. What I have 

 said, however, will serve to- define my position 

 with reference to the importance of paleontol- 

 ogy to the geologist. Let me return, then, to 

 the consideration of the importance of the 

 physical characters of our formation. I be- 

 lieve that the general neglect which this phase 

 of the subject has suffered is in part due to 

 the clumsy and unrefined nomenclature which 

 we have inherited from the fathers of our sci- 

 ence, and which, with the tacit, if not ex- 

 pressed, understanding that what was good 

 enough for them is good enough for us, we 

 have retained to the present time. So long as 

 we express in our nomenclature that all stones 

 composed of lime are limestones, and nothing 

 more, so long, I believe, progress in the study 

 of physical stratigraphy will be hampered. So 

 long as we are content to use indiscriminately 

 the structural terms slate and shale for rocks 

 which have no other claim to these names than 

 that clay generally enters into their composi- 

 tion — if that may be considered a claim — so 

 long progress in this direction will be re- 

 tarded. Naumann and Hauy long ago pro- 

 posed textural terms for the three great types 

 of clastic rocks, but these have been mostly 

 overlooked by modern writers except the Ger- 

 mans, who are far ahead of us in the study of 

 physical stratigraphy. It is true the terms of 

 Naumann and Hauy, derived from the Greek, 

 are not very euphoneous, nor do they lend 

 themselves readily to composition, yet they are 

 much better than indefinite descriptive 

 phrases. Calcopsephyte and calcopsammyte 

 do not fall pleasantly on the ear, yet they are 

 far better than the indefinite terms, brecciated 

 limestone — which might mean limestone brec- 

 ciated by subsequent causes — or granular 

 limestones — which might mean a number of 

 different things. Certainly calcopelite is far 

 better than the vague and roundabout phrase: 

 ' compact, fine-grained limestone with con- 

 choidal fracture,' which leaves you still in 

 doubt whether the rock in question is a 

 clastic, composed of lime flour, or a massive 



