R. T. Rill — The alleged Jurassic of Texas. 457 



the south thereof, including Professor Marcou's Comet Creek 

 locality, and his results have been fully published in this Jour- 

 nal for July, 1897. Professor Ward, who accompanied Mr. 

 Vaughan to the Kansas localities, is now again in the Kansas 

 region,* studying the fossil flora. Professor C. S. Prosser has 

 also lately published an excellent paper on the stratigraphy of 

 the Kansasf localities, which confirms the conclusions of 

 Professor Marcou's opponents. The invertebrate paleontology 

 of the same region is in process of publication by Professor 

 Cragin. 



After all the complaints pervading Professor Marcou's papers 

 against others who are working as hard and consistently as 

 they can upon the problems of the region, for not publishing 

 hastily, and charging that " poor stratigraphy and poor paleon- 

 tology have long enough prevailed," etc., etc., he apparently 

 sees no inconsistency in immediately creating in this article a 

 new species of oyster (Gryphwa hansana) without one word 

 of description or illustration. 



His accusation (page 201) that Dr. Charles A. White changed 

 u the generic and specific name " of his (Marcou's) G. piteheri, 

 alias G. rw?neri, etc., etc., to Exogyra forniculata is untrue. 

 Marcou, himself, was the first to use the generic name Exogyra, 

 for this species, in his first paper in the original Whipple 

 report and elsewhere,;): and continued to use it for some time, 

 as shown in the extracts from his writings given on a later 

 page. Although I believe Dr. White's Exogyra forniculata 

 may be identical with Marcou's G. pitcheri, there is still room 

 for much doubt upon this subject. 



Inasmuch as this Gryphoea and the thickness of the beds 

 containing it is made the basis of many charges against others 

 by Professor Marcou, it may be well to introduce here the fol- 

 lowing extract from his own writings concerning it which will 

 be referred to later in this paper. 



His record of the thickness of the Comet Creek beds and 

 the various names which he gave to the fossil found there 

 ("Gryphwa pitcher i") and which almost exclusively composes 

 the rock, is as follows : 



1855. " This limestone is only five feet thick ; it is of a whitish 

 grey color containing an immense quantity of Ostracea which I 

 consider (provisionally) as the Exogyra ponderosa Roemer; hav- 

 ing the closest analogy with the Exogyra of the neocomian of the 

 environs of Neufchatel." — U. S. Pacific Railroad Explorations, 

 1853-54, vol. iv, p. 43, H. Doc. 129, Washington, 1855. 



* Prof. Ward has returned since this was written, bringing with him over forty 

 boxes of Cretaceous fossil plants. 



f Report of Kansas State Geological Survey, pp. 96-181, 1897. 

 X Geology of North America, p. 17. 



