208 THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS. [bull. 80. 



previously arisen in America a paleontological one. The discovery of 

 some fossils by F. Hawn in Kansas, some of which were sent to G. 0. 

 Swallow among Carboniferous species for identification, and others of 

 the same species among Cretaceous forms to Mr. Meek, led to the dis- 

 covery by both Swallow and Meek of their Permian character. Mr. 

 Swallow appears to have made the first printed announcement of the 

 "Permian rocks," although Mr. Meek had previously announced the 

 identification in private letters, and a few days later Messrs. Meek and 

 Hayden defined the same fossils as "indicating Permian rocks" in 

 papers read at both Albany and Philadelphia. 



The fossils in question were identified and described by Swallow, 

 Geinitz, and Meek separately ; and the argument for the presence of 

 the Permian system of rocks in Kansas and Nebraska and New Mexico, 

 made by Swallow and seconded by Geinitz, Marcou, and others, was, 

 that in the rocks were found a number of species identical with species 

 characteristic of the Permian rocks of Kussia, Germany, and England. 



Mr. Meek, supported by Mr. Hayden and others, maintained that 

 the rocks lying above unmistakable upper Coal Measure rocks in this 

 Territory, contained fossils of Permian type, in a few cases showing 

 possible specific identity with European Permian species; but that 

 there was a gradual passage, both litholbgical and paleontological, 

 from the Coal Measures to the beds containing these Permian types. 

 After obtaining abundant material and giving it exhaustive study, Mr. 

 Meek found the identifications of Swallow, of Marcou, and of Geinitz 

 unsatisfactory. He recognized many species of Permian types, but 

 only a few that he was able to regard as identical with the Permian 

 fossils of Europe. In his report of 1872 he identified from the so-called 

 Permian of the southwest seven genera which had not hitherto been 

 reported below the Permian of Europe, but in the same beds he identi- 

 fied sixteen genera not otherwise known above the Carboniferous. He 

 called attention, however, to the fact, that of the seven genera several 

 are closely related to forms occurring below ; secondly, he found several 

 of the species, which are confessedly of Permian type, still lower and in 

 association with unmistakable upper Coal Measure faunas. In his list 

 of the species in question in Nebraska, amounting to one hundred and 

 twenty- two, only thirteen are named which have not been discovered 

 in the Coal Measures of some of the other States. Besides this ming- 

 ling of species and genera, and their passage upward in such large 

 numbers, he found evidence neither of sudden change in the lithologic 

 character of the strata, nor of stratigraphic break, and his conclusion 

 is, that these rocks belong to the Coal Measures, "and that here wo 

 have no abrupt break between the Carboniferous and Permian" (p. 

 133); "that all these strata under consideration along the Missouri, 

 that have been referred in part to the Mountain limestone, in part to 

 the Permian or Dyas, and in part to the Coal Measures, really belong 



