March 8, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



267 



of the name Xewavk to special recognition." 

 On the other hand, I am of the opinion that 

 my reply shonlcl have silenced opi^osition. 

 There is, thns, a radical diflerence of opin- 

 ion between us. There is also a question 

 of fact involved. Has Newark prioritj^ as a 

 group name ? This is a simple historical 

 question that almost any one can decide 

 from the documentary evidence. In the 

 psipei-s described in the following foot-note* 

 I have presented or referred to all of the evi- 

 dence known to me bearing on the question. 



In Professor Hitclicock's recent article 

 there are many statements that have no re- 

 lation to the matter under discussion, since 

 they refer to usages of later date than the 

 inti-oduction of the term Newark. No legit- 

 imate arguments are advanced that are not 

 in the former paper, and as these have all 

 been answered, there is nothing left for me 

 to do but to follow my opponent's example 

 and republish my reply to his five-j'ear-old 

 criticism. 



My paper in the American Geologist for 

 April, ISO] , reads as follows : 



" In a brief paper on the Newark system 

 published in this journal [Am.GeoL] about 

 two years since, f I [iroposed a revival of 

 ' Newark ' as a group name for the reddish- 

 brown sandstones and shales and associated 

 trap rocks of the Atlantic coast region, 

 which had previously been (|uite generally 

 referred to the Triassic and Jurassic. A 

 long list of names was presented that had 

 been used to designate the rocks in question ; 

 nearly all of which imjilied correlation with 

 European ten-anes, ranging from the Silu- 

 rian to the Jurassic. The advisabilitj- of 

 adopting a name that did not indicate re- 



♦Tlie Newark .System, Am. Geol., Vol. 3, 1H8!), 

 pp. 17IJ-182. 



Has ' Newark ' priority as a {rroup name, Am. 

 Geol., Vol. 7, 1891, pp. •J:!>^-241. 



The Newark System, U. S. Geol. .Sur\-., Bull. No. 

 85 (Correlation Papers) I-'iVi. 

 tVol. 3, 1S89, pp. IT-^-l*-'. 

 tAm. Geol. 5, April, 1hh9, p. 251. 



lationship with distant formations was also 

 pointed out. The first name on the list re- 

 ferred to which met this requirement was 

 ' Newai-k group,' proposed by W. C. Red- 

 field, in 1856. That this was a grouji name, 

 intended to indicate the entire formation, is 

 shown by the language used. Redfield's 

 words are: 



" I propose the latter designation [New- 

 ark group] as a convenient name for these 

 rocks (the red sandstone extending from 

 New Jersey to Virginia) and to those of 

 the Connecticut valley, with which they 

 are thoroughly identified by foot-prints and 

 other fossils, and I would include also the 

 contemporaneous sandstones of Virginia 

 and North Carolina.'"* 



As stated in my previous paper, the term 

 ' group ' has been adopted by the Internat- 

 ional Congress of Geologists in a wider 

 sense than was implied by Redfield. I 

 therefore suggested that ' system ' should be 

 substituted instead. Before offering the 

 suggestion I made what I believe to have 

 been an exhaustive examination of the lit- 

 erature relating to the terrane in question, 

 and concluded that Redfield's name had 

 precedence over all other names that had 

 been used which did not implj' correlation. 



The term Newark system has recently 

 been adopted by several geologists, in ac- 

 cordance with my suggestion, and up to the 

 present time but one voice has been raised 

 against it. In an article on ' The use of the 

 terms Laureutian and Newark in geological 

 treatises,' published in this journal, f Prof. 

 C. H. Hitchcock has formulated live objec- 

 tions to its acceptance. The.se will be con- 

 sidered in the order in which they were pre- 

 sented . 



Flrd. It is claimed that ' An essential 

 feature of a name derived from a geograph- 



* Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser. 1856, Vol. 22, p. 357 ; also 

 in Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., Vol. 10, Albany meet- 

 ing, 1856, p. 181. 



t Vol. 5, 1890, pp. 197-202. 



