80 Miscellaneous. 



Permian Fossils in Kansas, and elsewhere in America. — 

 We have received, nearly at the same time, published notices by 

 Mr. Meek and Dr. Hay don of Albany, and by Professor Swallow 

 of Missouri, on the discovery in a bed of limestone at Smoky Hill 

 Fort, and other places in Kansas, of fossil shells, clearly indicating 

 that this bed represents the Permian system of Sir K. I. Murchison, 

 the newest member of the Palseozoic series, and one of the links 

 heretofore wanting to give completeness to the chain of geological 

 formations in Western America. We observe that a controversy 

 exists between the gentlemen above named as to the priority of 

 discovery or the right of announcing it. As both of the parties 

 have sufficiently established reputations, independently of this 

 discovery, we would recommend to them to leave the honor to 

 Major Hawn and Dr. Cooper, who actually disinterred these in-> 

 teresting remains, and to co-operate in the description of the fos- 

 sils and the prosecution of farther researches. 



We observe in the November number of Silliman's Journal, 

 that the fossils collected by Professor Emmons in North Carolina 

 are leading to the conclusion, that the well-known red sandstones 

 of Connecticut, New Jersey, etc., are of somewhat older elate than 

 geologists have recently supposed — that they may be Lower 

 Triassic or even Permian. This is of some geological interest in 

 British America, as it would bring these deposits into parallelism 

 with the great areas of red sandstone in Prince Edward Island 

 and Nova Scotia, known to be later than the coal period, and 

 respecting which the writer several years since* stated his opinion, 

 founded on fossil plants and reptilian remains, that they were 

 probably Permian or Lower Triassic, a view which then seemed 

 scarcely compatible with the received age of the similar sand- 

 stones in the United States. • 



The most interesting part of the discoveries of Prof. Emmons, 

 rendered still more interesting by the probability that these rocks 

 are older than the American geologists have hitherto supposed, 

 is, that among these fossils appears a small mammal, probably 

 the oldest known, the Dromatherium Sylvestre (Emmons). This 

 is the first evidence of Mammalian life obtained from the Second- 

 ary rocks in America; and if the views above mentioned are 

 correct, older than the Microlestes of the German Trias, the old- 

 est fossil mammal heretofore found. j. w. d. 



* Journal Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., vol. 2, and Proc. vol. vii ; and Acadian 

 Geology. 



