480 CROSS AND HOWE — RED BEDS OF SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO 



future, and further discussion is therefore postponed. Dutton's descrip- 

 tion of the Permian and Aubrey formations shows that the term Red 

 beds applies to them. 



NORTHEASTERN ARIZONA 



From the Zuni plateau a wide tract of upland stretches for 150 miles 

 or more northwest to the brink of the Colorado canyon. On the north- 

 east is the San Juan valley and on the southwest is the Little Colorado. 

 It is the land of the Moqui and the Navajo Indians. Beneath the Eocene 

 and Cretaceous strata of the higher central plateau appear the Jurassic 

 and Triassic beds, the character of which on the San Juan side has already 

 been considered. That the same sj^stems are represented continuously 

 from the Little Colorado to the Zuni plateau was long ago ascertained by 

 Newberry (32), though definite evidence of the Triassic age of any par- 

 ticular strata has been but recently brought to light. 



In 1899 Lester F. Ward explored the celebrated "Petrified Forest" of 

 Arizona, which occurs on the northeast side of the Little Colorado, in 

 the Triassic beds (42). The fossil wood collected by Ward has not been 

 described, but in association with the wood he discovered fragmentary 

 vertebrate remains, of which F. A. Lucas announced the general character 

 in a preliminary note (29). Subsequently further collections were made 

 by Barnum Brown for the United States National Museum, and a part 

 of the fauna has been described by Lucas (30). 



The greater part of the material found by both Ward and Brown is 

 referred by Lucas to two belodont crocodiles, one being the species 

 described by him as Heterodontosuchus g a nei, the type of vvhich|was found 

 by Gane in the Dolores beds of the San Juan valley; the other called 

 Episcoposaurus Cope. Associated with these remains were found bones 

 of three other vertebrates. One of these, alargelabyrinthodontamphibian, 

 is described as Metoposaurus fraasi, n. sp., the generic identity having 

 been concurred in by Dr E. Fraas, the authority on Triassic vertebrates 

 of Europe. Another form is described as Placer ias hesternus, a Cotylo- 

 saurian, both genus and species being new. Still other remains are 

 referred by Lucas to the dinosaur Palssoctonus Cope. 



After referring to the discovery of a similar vertebrate fauna near 

 Lander, Wyoming, which will be discussed on a later page of this 

 paper, Lucas states : 



"Aside from the interest attached to the finding of this new species is the more 

 important fact, pointed out by Doctor Fraas, that the genus Metoposaurus is char- 

 acteristic of the Keuper of Europe, and that we have in these Triassic beds of 

 Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming the same combination of belodont and labyrintho- 

 dont as in the Keuper " (30). 



