i 
A404 PROCEEDINGS OF MONTREAL MEETING. . 
geological column. Personally or through his collectors he thoroughly 
explored the Wasatch of New Mexico and Wyoming, elucidating its 
fauna with wonderful skill and insight, and pointing out its close corre- 
spondence to the Suessonian of France, with which his studies in that 
country had made him familiar. 
In the Bridger formation Cope added very largely to what was known 
regarding the vertebrate fauna, and established the position of the Wind 
River beds as forming a substage at the base of the Bridger and making 
a transition from the older Wasatch to the Bridger proper. He also made 
a classical series of investigations upon the fishes of the Green River 
shales, and pointed out the probable equivalence in time of these beds 
with those of the Wind River substage. He first described the fauna of 
the Manti beds of Utah of approximately contemporaneous age. 
The White River formation was quite thoroughly examined by Hayden, 
and its exceedingly rich vertebrate fauna formed the subject of Leidy’s 
famous monographs, but Cope’s studies of this remarkable horizon were 
of still greater importance, even though his strictly paleontological work 
be not taken into consideration. Leidy had determined these beds as 
being of Miocene age, and to this day their Miocene date is all but uni- 
versally agreed upon. Cope was the first to challenge this determination 
and to show that the White River should rather be referred to the Oligo- 
cene. Kor some reason many American geologists have seemed unwilling 
to recognize the Oligocene as a distinct period or to make any use of the 
term. ‘This is unfortunate, because it obscures the correspondences be- 
tween American and European formations, and Cope was always keenly 
alive to the importance of determining and giving expression to these 
correspondences. He has found as yet few followers in referring the 
White River beds. to the Oligocene, but in my judgment there can be no 
question that the reference is correct, and if so it is highly important 
that the change in nomenclature should be made, for to call the beds 
Miocene is simply misleading. An interesting discovery made by Cope 
was the detection of White River beds in North Dakota 200 miles north 
of where they had been known before, and the range of the formation 
was extended much farther by his studies on the fossils sent him by the 
Canadian Survey from the Swift Current region of the Northwest Terri- 
tory. The Canadian fauna has certain resemblances to the contemporary 
life of Hurope in addition to those which have been detected in the 
United States. 
The Amyzon shales of Nevada and central Oregon and the Florissant 
beds of Colorado were also examined by Cope, who has described the 
important series of fishes which were obtained from these formations. 
While somewhat in doubt concerning the geological date of the beds, 
