152 C. Sclmchert — Russian Carboniferous and Pe 



rmtan. 



which have traversed this subject, the correlation of these beds 

 is still one of the unsettled problems of the American Carbo- 

 niferous. If the Capitan fauna is Permian, then certainly that 

 of Kansas is not, for 2 Carboniferous faunas could scarcely 

 have less in common. While it is possible that the so-called 

 Kansas Permian is a provincial phase of the Guadalnpian, this 

 is yet to be demonstrated, and it is questionable whether for 

 2 faunas so essentially unlike, even if proved to have been con- 

 temporaneous, the same name could with propriety be used. 

 On the assumption that the Kansas beds are Permian, so closely 

 are they connected, faunally and stratigraphically, with those 

 below, the term Permian must be reduced to denominate a 

 difference not much greater than that between the Burlington 

 and Keokuk, or else most of the Kansas section must be placed 

 in the Permian, a disposition against which there is much 

 evidence. It seems probable that the Kansas Permian repre- 

 sents a faunal development in a distinct province from that of 

 the West, the Western faunas being co-provincial with the 

 typical Permian sea. The equivalence of the Kansas Permian 

 is not to be determined upon the basis of a community of a 

 few slightly differentiated long-lived types, but must be worked 

 out by a consideration of the fauna as a whole and the facies 

 which it receives from the presence of equivalent but probably 

 not equal species. 



" The Guadalnpian faunas are not only widely different from 

 those of Pennsylvanian age in the Mississippi Valley, but they 

 appear to have a distinctly younger facies, biologically con- 

 sidered. So far as the significance of the somewhat hastily 

 reviewed evidence has been grasped, it seems to assign the 

 Kansas faunas to about the horizon of the Hueco formation, 

 placing the entire Guadalupian series, or at all events the Capi- 

 tan, as a younger evolution, whether the 2 faunas were devel- 

 oped in distinct provinces or in the same " (3, pp. 25-26). 



The late Paleozoic formations have great development in 

 Alaska, but as yet the faunas have onlv been partially studied. 

 Schuchert's (Prof. Paper 41, U. 8. Geol. Survey, 1905, pp. 

 42-45) conclusions regarding these fossils are as follows : ; — 



" In looking over the collection listed in the large table not 

 submitted in this report, the first impression made is its 

 strangeness when compared with other American late Paleo- 

 zoic faunas, excepting that of northern California as yet 

 unpublished. Nearly every species is new, certainly new for 

 North America so far as the published record goes. The 

 developmental aspect is clearly late Paleozoic, and yet there 

 is not present a single diagnostic upper Carboniferous or Per- 

 mian species of the Mississippi Valley. Further, we miss of 

 the brachiopocls of the last-named basin the ever-present 



