194 THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS. [bull. 80. 



The Permian system had been named and defined by Murchison in 

 the report on the geology of Russia. 1 



William King's monograph of the Permian fossils of England was 

 published in 1850. 



Murchison's idea of the "Permian" was, that it was a system equiva- 

 lent in rank to the Silurian or Carboniferous, and that it was character- 

 ized "by one type of animal and vegetable life." The question as to 

 whether this idea was a correct one did not come definitely before the 

 American geologists till a later period. When they discovered above 

 the Coal Measures fossils indicating a Permian fauna, the question was 

 as to whether or not the Permian system was present in the American 

 geological series. 



Those who took the most active part in the discussion were Messrs. 

 Meek, Hayden, Swallow, Shumard, Hawn, Marcou, Geinitz, Norwood, 

 Newberry, and C. A. White. 



The typical sections whence the fossils came were along the Kansas 

 River in northeast Kansas, and in Nebraska and south and west of 

 these (at that time) Territories. In Swallow and Hawn's paper on 

 "The Rocks of Kansas" 2 is given the typical Kansas section made by 

 F. Hawn, consisting of — 3 



Feet. Strata Nos. 



System I. Quaternary 1G9 1-3 



System II. Cretaceous 72 4-5 



System III Triassic(f) 420K?) 6-25 



System III. Permian: 



UpperPermian 263 2C-31 



Lower Permian 557 32-70 



System IV. Carboniferous: 



"Coal Measures, probably above the upper Coal 



Measures of Missouri" 1,073 



The section made independently by Messrs. Meek and Hayden, in- 

 cluding about the same section of rocks, is published in their paper on . 

 " Geological Explorations in Kansas Territory." 4 



The section is entitled "General section of the rocks of Kansas Val- 

 ley from the Cretaceous down, so as to include portions of the Upper 

 Coal Measures." Forty strata are given, numbered from above down- J 

 ward, 1 to 40. The point wher;^ they draw the line between the Upper 

 Coal Measures and what may be called the Permian is at the top of theirf 

 stratum No. 11. No. 10 above contains well authenticated Permian 

 fossils; the locality of both sections is on Cottonwood Creek, in thd 

 neighborhood of Fort Riley. Most of the fossils reported as Permian; 

 by Swallow and collected by Hawn were from the Valley of the Cotton^ 

 wood and from Smoky Hill Fork. 



» 



1 Murchison, Verneuil, and Keyserlingin 1845. The first announcement of the system was made in«| 

 letter from Murchison dated Moscow, September, 1841, and published in the Philosophical Magazine^ ' 

 vol, 19, p. 419. 



2 Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., vol. 1, pp. 173-197. 

 3 Ibid., pp. 174-175. 



4 Proc. A-cad. Nat. Sci., Phil., vol. 2, pp. 8-30. 



