WILLIAMS.] MEEK. 207 



limestone series. The Plattesmouth section Marcou called New Red. 

 The section at Rock Bluff follows that of the Plattesmouth section 

 from 1, 2, 3, upward : this latter section Marcou had referred to the 

 Lower Dyas or New Red. The Cedar Bluff section the author correlated 

 with the part of the Rock Bluff' section lying above No. IX. This was 

 called " Upper Permian " or « Dyas " by Marcou and Geinitz. Meek 

 thinks that both Marcou and Geinitz determined the Dyas, in some 

 cases at least, on lithologic instead of paleontologic grounds. 



Meek uses the names " Lower Carboniferous," " Millstone grit," and 

 "Coal Measures" to indicate the three grander divisions of the Car- 

 boniferous System, with "Permian" and "Dyas" for the still higher 

 member. " Mountain limestone " is used also for Lower Carboniferous. 

 The name " Permo-Carboniferous " is applied by Hayden and Meek to 

 rocks in Kansas, equivalent to Division C at Nebraska City. All 

 the other sections along the Missouri he regards as certainly belong- 

 ing to the Coal Measures. In Kansas, the division between Permian 

 and Carboniferous is arbitrary, not founded on physical or paleonto- 

 logic break. Permian rocks in Kansas were first announced in the 

 Transactions of the Albany Institute, vol. 4, 1858. Later investiga- 

 tions led the authors to consider the so-called Permian as merely tran- 

 sitional from the Uppe r Cotil Measures. 1 Meek thinks that facts indi- 

 cate that these fossils belong in the Carboniferous or Coal Measures, 

 and that there is no abrupt break between the Carboniferous and 

 Permian. 



Mr. Meek's Review of Professor Geinitz's paper, 1867, and this 

 Nebraska Report of 1872 practically closed the debate on the Permian 

 problem of Kansas and Nebraska. 



Mr. F. B. Meek had been for several years associated with Mr. Hay- 

 den in the collection, study, and description of the fossils of these and 

 neighboring Territories. Messrs. Swallow, Shumard and others had 

 examined and reported their identification of fossils from Kansas, which 

 they defined as new species or referred to European species of the 

 Permian age. A collection made by Mr. Marcou had been sent over to 

 Mr. H. B. Geinitz, of Dresden, and there figured and described by him. 

 But Mr. Meek had examined the sections thoroughly in connection 

 with Hayden, and had made an exhaustive study of the fossils, com- 

 paring them with European specimens, and studying fully the litera- 

 ture of the whole subject. His paleontological work exhibits a degree 

 of precision of observation, broadness of thought, and thoroughness 

 of study surpassing any of his predecessors in America, and all com- 

 bined with scrupulous honesty. 



Leaving out of the question the dispute as to the real discoverer of 

 the Permian, which provoked considerable discussion and, apparently, 

 ill feeling, the Permian problem was more purely than any that had 



1 See Meek's paper, Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 44, p. 170 and p. 331, in regard to the misidentifi cation of 

 Geinitz. 



