134 
Terms that save men’s time and nervous 
energy are helpful and welcome; those that 
consume time and energy without adequate re- 
turn are ‘useless incumbrances.’ For this is a 
pretty busy world, and as many of us are 
anxious to keep pace with what is going on in 
geology and geography we often feel impelled 
to say to contributors, as we do to callers at the 
the office during business hours: ‘ Be plain ; 
be brief.’’ 
Local names serve good purposes with stu- 
dents who are obliged to get their ideas of 
geology from local illustrations, but such names 
should be kept at home; in the general litera- 
ture of the subject they are what the Huropean 
geologists call them. 
One’s feeling the need of a new term, or his 
haying found one ‘serviceable in his lectures 
during the past winter,’ are certainly not of 
themselves sufficient reasons for introducing 
them to the public. 
Technical names are a necessary evil, and 
new ones cannot be avoided ; but it is our duty 
to increase this evil as little as we can, and 
only after duly weighing the pros and cons of 
each case. JOHN C. BRANNER. 
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA, 
July 12, 1897. 
NOTES ON SOME FOSSILS OF THE COMANCHE 
SERIES. 
THE description and figure of Turritella leo- 
nensis given by Conrad in the Report of the 
Mexican Boundary Survey implies that all of 
the whorls of the shell in that species are 
rounded. In my ‘Description of Invertebrate 
Fossils from the Comanche series in Texas, 
Kansas and Indian Territory’ (Colorado Col- 
lege Studies, V), I described Turritella deni- 
sonensis from the Choctaw limestone of northern 
Texas, noting its resemblance to J. leonensis, 
but separating it from that species on the ground 
of the much enlarged and angulated, or shoul- 
dered, body-whorl. In 1895 Mr. R:. W. 
Goodell brought some fragmentary but interest- 
ing specimens of Jeonensis from the Trans-Pecos 
region of Texas, whence came Conrad’s types 
of the species. One of these shows the body- 
whorl to be enlarged and shouldered as in deni- 
sonensis. I therefore suspect the latter to be 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Vou. VI. No. 134. 
a synonym of leonensis. As the northern speci- 
mens have been found in both the Choctaw and 
Grayson members of the Denison formation, 
while there is reason to believe that Mr. Good- 
ell’s specimens are from the Washita formation, 
it is probable that Turritella leonensis ranges 
throughout the entire Gainesville division. 
In 1893, in the Fourth Annual Report of the 
Geological Survey of Texas (Part II., page 282), 
the writer noticed a shell that had been col- 
lected by Mr. L. 8. Williams from ‘drift,’ in 
northern Texas, briefly characterizing it as a 
variety of Turritella seriatim-granulata and as- 
signing to it the name ventrivoluta. Our first 
positive knowledge of the stratigraphic place of 
this shell is afforded by a fine specimen which 
the writer found in 1893 (only a few months 
after the original notice of the shell had been 
published) near Belvidere, Kansas, in the lower 
part of the Kiowa shales, viz., the Fullington 
beds, which correspond more or less nearly 
with the Kiamitia of Texas. The specimen is 
complete, and the half which is free from the 
matrix affords an apertural view of the shell in 
its entire length. The ornamentation is well 
preserved and, taken in connection with the 
other characters, shows that the shell is very 
distinct from T. seriatim-granulata. Like the 
latter species, it belongs to the subgenus 
Mesalia, and should be known as Turritella 
(Mesalia) ventrivoluta. 
Turritella belviderei, sp. noy.—Shell of medium 
size in the genus, consisting of ten or more 
flattened or somewhat convex whorls; suture 
feebly impressed; aperture round-rhombic, 
slightly elevated; whorls ornamented with 
about six subequal to unequal, abruptly elevated 
revolving ribs whose summits are beaded, each 
bearing a rather closely-set series of oblique to 
transverse prominent granules ; the intercostal 
intervals square-bottomed, those of the upper 
spire-whorls and of the lower parts of the body- 
whorl and first spire-whorl wider than the ribs, 
those of the upper parts of the body-whorl and 
first spire-whorl respectively less than and 
about equal to the ribs ; upper rib and tubercles 
of each whorl usually coarser than the others, 
especially so in the case of the body-whorl, in 
which the large tubercles are sometimes dis- 
tinctly arcuate (concave on the side away from 
