24 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XXII. No. 545 



printed, bitter, and vindictive attack upon my report, endeavor- 

 ing to discredit all the work I had done in the Texas region. This 

 la'st-mentioned paper is so utterly incorrect in its assertions, and 

 so malicious in tone, that I do not think it needs other answer 

 than a perusal of it. Certainly it has no place in scientific litera- 

 ture, and if any of my friends should be so deceived by it as to 

 believe any of its assertions, I shall be glad to clear any doubts by 

 correspondence. 



In Science of May 26, 1893. p. 283, the author of the foregoing 

 attacks again misquotes me by saying that after my second visit 

 to Tucumcaii I again afSrmed Marcou's reference, an assertion 

 which has no foundation, fdr hardly had the two lires after my 

 first visit been printed before I realized my mistake, and orally 

 communicated it to everyone interested, and have never since 

 maintained by word or pen, and was the first to publish the true 

 age of these beds. 



It was impossible, in a general report written upon the subject 

 of Artesian Water, to go into controversy over the age of a fos- 

 siliferous horizon. I had given a full outline of the region with 

 its broader problems in a Bulletin of the Geological Society of 

 America for 1891, entitled "Notes on the Texas New Mexico 

 Region." In this paper I clearly set forth the Tertiary age of the 

 Llano Estacado, and amplified many points which have since 

 been published entirely de novo. Inasmuch as several parties 

 have criticised me in public print for rot giving the minutiae of 

 Tucumcari, T submit the following amplification of my previous 

 remarks, and hope it will prove satisfactory to all fair-m"nded 

 readers. 



Section of Tucumcari Mesa. 



Preliminary. 



Thickness (esti- 

 mated on spot). 



6. Summit of Mesa (Neocene). 



White, calcareous, silicious, marly limestone of 

 character peculiar to Tertiary formations of Great 

 Plains 35-80 



5. Escarpment around summit of Mesa (Dakota). 



Consisting of the massive brown-yellow sandstone, 

 which I had traced for days from LaMora, and 

 other points on the Las Vegas Plateau, and which 

 Stevenson had called (I think properly) Dakota. 

 Estimated to be about ?5 



4. Crumbling yellow sandstone at base of above, and 

 (4a). Gentler slope, forming bench around summit 

 escarpment, (Washita) Division of. Comanche se- 

 ries. Decomposing sandstone of base of 4,and arena- 

 ceous clays and marls. Containing fauna of Deni- 

 son beds, Washita Division at top, and O. dilatata, 

 Marrou, in debris, apparently weathered out .... 100 



3. Shoulder at base of above. 



Impure, yellow, ai-enaceous stone 15 



Pedestal, or lower slope of Mesa. 



2a. Upper part (Trinity). 



White and red unconsolidated sands (pack sarids), 

 with thin strata of dimension-layers of hard quartz- 

 itic rock, and thin layers of blue clay, resembling 

 in general character the Potomac sands of Mary- 

 land and the Trinity Sands of Texas. This horizon 

 contains a peculiar granular mineral, resembling 

 red coral, and outcrops in all the escarpment of 

 the Las Vegas Plateau on the north side of the 

 Canadian, and is denominated the white band in 

 that region, to distinguish it from the brown band 

 (Dakota) and underlying Red Beds 150 



1(b) Lower portion of slope (Pre-Cretaceous). 



Bright, vermilion, argillaceous clays of the Red 



Beds continuing to bed of Canadian 250 



The above section is not final or complete in details of the indi- 

 vidual beds, but it illustrates the sequence of the four great forma- 

 tions as preserved at Tucumcari and in the adjacent Dano Esta- 

 cado, and shows the geologic position of the following fauna, which 



were collected near the summit below the base of the sandstone 

 escarpment which surrounds it, in beds numbered 4 and 4a. 



List of Fossils. 



1. TurhinoKa texuna, Conrad. United States and Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



2. Ostrea {Gryphcea) dilatata, Marcou. Geology of North 

 America. 



3. Ostrea quadrieosfata, Shumard. Transactions Academy of 

 Science, St. Louis, 1860. 



4. Plicatula, species undescribed. 



5. Neithea occidental-is, Conrad. United States and Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



6. Trigonia emoryi, Conrad. United States and Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



7. Protocardia multistriata, Con. United States and Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



8. TxirriteUa marnochii, White, or Seriatim granidnta, Roe- 

 mer. 



9. Ammonites leonensis, Conrad. United States and Mexican 

 Boundary Survey. 



In addition to the above there are four species of Pelecyopoila, 

 which I am unable to determine generically, but they resemble 

 Astarte, Lucina, Panopcea, and Isocardia. 



All of the species enumerated, with the exception of No, 2 ((?. 

 dilatuta, Marcou), occur elsewhere in the greatest a'mndance and 

 similarly associated in the Washita Division of the Comanche 

 Series of Texas and Mexiro, and, with the exception of Nos. 5 and 

 8, have never been found in any other beds than those of the 

 Washita Division. Nos. 5 and 8 range downward into the Fred- 

 ericksburg Division. 



No 1 {TurbinoHa texana Con.) has not been reported east of 

 the Pecos, but it occurs near El Paso, and at Arivichi. Sonora 

 (as shown by Gabb), associated with a fauna similar to that of 

 Tucumcari. 



The forms from No 2 to No. 9, inclusive, are the most common 

 and characteristic species of the Washita Division, and can be 

 collected at nearly any locality where the entire division js ex- 

 posed, between Marietta. Indian Territory, and the Rio Grande. 



The ammonite is the common, chararteristic ammonite of the 

 Fort Worth beds of the Washita Division, at Denison. Fort Worth, 

 Austin, and elsewhere, and has hitberio not been found except 

 in the Fort Worth beds of the Washita Division. 



Ostrea quadricostaia, Shum., Trigonia emoryii. Con., and the 

 other species mentioned are especially characteristic of the Deni- 

 son or uppermost beds of the WHshita Divi.-ion, at Denison. an I 

 hence my reference of these beds at Tucumcari to the Denison bms 

 of the Washita Division. 



As I have pren'onsly maintained, G. dilatata, Marcou. is a good 

 species, entirely distinct from G pitcheri, Morton, and, as has 

 been said, has remarkable resemblance to the Jurassic G. d,latata 

 of Sowerby. Under these cou'litions it is not strange, then, that 

 before the stratigraphic and paleontologic position of the Washita 

 Division was known, that the distant Tucumcari beds should have 

 been adjudged Jurassic upon the evidence of the two species col- 

 lected therefrom by Maicou, which certainly have, when consid- 

 ered alone, a most Jurassic aspect.' 



The section and list of fossils above given differ in detail from 

 those published on page 208 of the Third Annual Report of the 

 Texas State Geologicnl Survey. The two lists, however, boih ^how 

 the Gryphcea dilatata beds to be of the age of the Washita Divi- 

 sion of the Comanche Series, and the author of the Te.vas report, 

 which was printed several months after the writer's, came to the 

 same conclusion, although he seems to have been unaware of the 

 fact that the writer had abandoned bis farly reference of the G. 

 dilatata beds to the Jurassic. With the exception that the beds 

 which the writer refers to the Trinity, are referred by the Texas, 

 aulh r to the Triassic, there is no dissimilarity between their con- 

 clusions. 



Following is the list of fossils published in the Texas reports,, 

 "collected from the Tucumcari beds in the vicinity of Tucuuioari 



Oryphcea dilatata, var. t^icnr. 



, Marcou, and O. mnrsHi, Marcou. 



