REPORT OF THE STATE PALEONTOLOGIST 1901 423 



undertaken to give a representation of such facts in a region 

 that has been studied in great detail, perhaps with more care 

 with reference to the succession of its fossil faunas than any 

 other equal area in the state. The early maps of the sedimen- 

 tary rocks of this state, like those prepared in other countries, 

 combined all available data, organic and physical, for the 

 delimitation of the formations; but the so called "geologic 

 maps " of today do not attempt the representation of anything 

 further than the succession of sediments or lithologic units. It 

 is therefore, not possible that such a map tell the whole truth, 

 for faunas do not vary pari passu with sediments. These geo- 

 logic maps representing a succession of lithologic units display 

 in a general way, it may be said, the facts which strike the 

 ordinary observer most forcibly, such as the change in character 

 of the rock, which may not however harmonize with the registra- 

 tion of the more essential facts of the earth's record; they are 

 properly designated lithologic maps, as they express only varia- 

 tions in the character of the sedimentation. The true history 

 of the earth is less the record of the successive changes in the 

 nature of the materials that enter into the constitution of its 

 crustal masses and of the physical events which have induced 

 such changes, than it is a register of succession of the forms 

 of life which have appeared on the earth in consecutive units 

 of time. The history of the earth with this vital and organic 

 element eliminated is the history of a body dead to begin with 

 and always dead. Let it be invested with the manifestations of 

 the life force in its manifold variations from the beginning to 

 the present, and the earth's history becomes a record of vital 

 interest. 



Experience has further shown in the preparation of geologic 

 maps in the state of New York, on the scale of the U. S. topo- 

 graphic base map, that this scale is either too large or our 

 -stratigraphic data are insufficiently refined. The quadrangles, 

 stratigraphically colored, that we have thus far issued indicate 

 this fact by displaying for the respective formations represented 

 very broad bands of color with insufficient differentiation; 



