

Williams.] MEEK ON GEINITZ. 203 



Mr. Geinitz's paper. 1 As a preparation for his criticisms Mr. Meek had 

 thoroughly studied the species obtained from the same localities, and 

 before completing the article had gone over the sections from which they 

 were obtained and examined the stratigraphy of the whole region where 

 the rocks in question were exposed, from Iowa across Nebraska, Mis- 

 souri, and Kansas, collecting fresh materials. He also had access to the 

 numerous collections of the Smithsonian, among which were a consider- 

 able number of European Permian fossils. He had the advantage of Mr. 

 Geinitz in his thorough knowledge of the Carboniferous marine fossils of 

 the Mississippi Valley, comprising the fauna with which the fauna above 

 had to be immediately compared. With such preparation he made a 

 careful and critical review of the identification of species and genera 

 made in Geinitz's work. The author differs respecting the identification 

 both of genera and species from Geinitz, and suggests as explanatory 

 of the unsatisfactory identifications made by Mr. Geinitz that the latter 

 was ignorant of the Coal Measure fossils of America, and was there- 

 fore not in a position to see the close relationship between the faunas 

 below and those which follow. Mr. Meek had previously noticed in 

 the rocks called Permian by Swallow a mingling of Coal Measure and 

 Permian types, and calls attention to the frequent alternation of beds 

 containing these two types of fossils through considerable thickness of 

 strata which must be regarded as typical Upper Coal Measures. He 

 also remarks that Mr. Geinitz had only descriptions of species already 

 described in America, and had not access to the originals. In his 

 remarks regarding two schools of observers among paleontologists and 

 zoologists he defines the two classes as, tl first, those who give wide 

 latitude to genera and species, and second, those who restrict both 

 genera and species within more precise limits." In commenting on 

 Astarte Nebrascensis (p. 170) he remarks : "At any rate, specific iden- 

 tification and even generic references of such shells can be admitted 

 only provisionally until the hiuge and interior is known." On page 

 183, commenting on EhynchoneUa angulata Linnaeus of Geinitz, he 

 writes : 



I hope I shall be excused for adding here that the practice of positively identify- 

 ing species from widely distant parts of the earth upon such merely superficial points 

 of general resemblance, and thus complicatiug and vitiating all conclusions respect- 

 ing the geographical and geological range of species, can not be too carefully 

 avoided. 



The conclusion reached in this paper regarding the Permian problem 

 is to the effect that the rocks in Nebraska from which the so-called 

 Permian fossils have been obtained contain also a much larger number 

 of characteristic Coal Measure fossils, and therefore that the rocks 

 above the mouth of the Platte River called by Marcou " Mountain 

 limestone," those of Plattsmouth and Rock Bluff called " Lower Dyas" 



1 Remarks on Professor Geinitz's views respecting the Upper Paleozoic rocks aud fossils of south- 

 eastern Nebraska. By F. B. Meek, Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser. f vol. 44, 1867, pp. 170-187, 282-283, 327-339. 



