PERMIAN. 479 



"Albany" area the beds are wholly marine and destitute of both plants and vertebrates, though 

 abounding in the remains of invertebrates. The Pennsylvania!! aspect of this fauna has strongly 

 impressed some investigators, including the author of this paper, and doubt was entertained 

 as to whether the plane of separation between the Pennsylvanian and the Permian should be 

 drawn at the base or at the top of the formation. The studies of David Wliite, Beede, and others 

 have contributed much in recent years to a knowledge of the Permian in America and in the 

 maui support the view of the Permian age of the Wichita formation. In a recent paper Beede 

 has ably discussed the Permian of Kansas, with which he correlates the "Red Beds" of Texas. 

 Cummins correlates the beds of eastern Baylor County which he regards as the top of the Wich- 

 ita formation with the Fort Riley limestone of the Chase group of Kansas. * * * The top 

 boundary of the Wichita formation was drawn by Cummins at the top of a stratum of red clay 

 overlain by thin beds of limestone and blue shales at a poiat on the Big Wichita 4 miles west 

 of the east boundary of Baylor County. However, as we have shown, beds which are undoubt- 

 edly the same as those which appear at Seymour and southward in Throckmorton County 

 appear in the banks of the Big Wichita River some 8 to 10 miles west of this point. The thick- 

 ness of the strata included here, which overlies Cummins's topmost beds and are here included 

 with them in the Wichita formation, is estimated to be 250 to 300 feet. The whole limestone 

 and shale series of Baylor County thus included as the upper division of the Wichita forma- 

 tion is provisionally placed at 450 to 500 feet and consists, as shown elsewhere, of limestone 

 beds of varying thicknesses separated by varying but usually great thicknesses of shale. 



How much of this is to be correlated with the Fort Riley limestones can be determined 

 only by more detailed stratigraphic and paleontologic studies. Cummins evidently intended 

 to include the lower beds only in his correlation. It may be that further studies will show 

 that the overljring beds of the Winfield limestones of Kansas are represented here. 



In regard to the fauna Girty says : 



Not until recently, it seems to me, has adequate evidence been adduced either for distin- 

 guishing the Permian of Kansas and that of Texas sharply from the underlying Pennsylvanian 

 or for correlating them with the Permian of Europe. C. A. Wliite found the Wichita fauna to 

 have essentially a Pennsylvanian ("Coal Measures") facies, in which, however, certain charac- 

 teristic Permian ammonites occur. A similar conclusion seems to be demanded by the evidence 

 of the present collections. * * * 



Mr. White finds that about 50 per cent of the Wichita flora consists of species character- 

 istic of the Permian, while most of the remainder are known to occur in rocks regarded as of 

 Permian age. If we omit the fauna of the Kansas Permian, to include which would be a sort 

 of circulus vitiosus, no condition comparable to tliis has been demonstrated by the inverte- 

 brate fossils and, in so far as I have seen the evidence, no such condition exists. I am, there- 

 fore, accepting the Permian age of the Kansas and Texas beds, but at present strictly on the 

 paleobotanic evidence. 



David White states: 



In accordance with the paleobotanical standards of western Europe, I refer the plants of 

 the Little Wichita in Texas to the lower Permian, the terranes being probably referable to the 

 Chase group in Kansas. In this connection it should be observed, however, that the Artinskian 

 flora of the Urals is essentially Permian, and that paleobotanists universally agree with the 

 general usage of the geologists of western Europe in referring the Artinsk to the Permian. 



I-J 12-13. UTAH, COLORADO, ARIZONA, AND NEW MEXICO. 



The Permian of the Southwestern States is involved in the "Red Beds," which 

 comprise Pennsylvanian, Permian, and Triassic strata variously associated in dif- 

 ferent districts. As the surveys yet made suffice to distinguish the formations of 

 either age from the others in a few localities only, it is necessary in general to map 



