464 R. T. Hill — The alleged Jurassic of Texas. 



Jurassic Gryphwa dilatata of the Tucumcarri region. To off- 

 set this additional evidence of the Cretaceous age of the beds, 

 Mr. Marcou, after showing to his own satisfaction that all the 

 common species collected by Mr. Dumble from these upper- 

 most beds of the Comanche Series are " Jurassic," erroneously 

 says that the "Ammonites leonensis Conrad is not that species 

 at all, but the Ammonites shumardii Marcou. " It is true 

 that I placed this species in the Cretaceous of Texas, but I was 

 impressed by its form. ... If the specimen had come to me 

 with a Gryphcea tucumcarri, I should not have hesitated to 

 refer it to the Jurassic of Texas. But it came to my hands 

 collected by a person not a geologist, who put together all the 

 fossils obtained during a military march through Texas." It 

 is needless to say that the two species of Ammonites cited are 

 quite distinct. Such is an example of how he, himself, has bw 

 misquotation changed the geologic age of an Ammonite and 

 thus gained support for his erroneous conclusions — an act 

 identical with that which he has so skillfully tried to fix on 

 me in the case of A. walcotti. 



Another unfounded accusation is his assertion that I have 

 misquoted him when I spoke of the Comet Creek bed " as 

 being composed of a single bed of limestone five feet thick," 

 which he alleges is " another example of want of exactness in 

 quotation in Mr. Hill " (p. 205). The alleged quotation on my 

 part is from the first two of the extracts from his writings 

 previously given, wherein he distinctly says " This limestone " 

 (not limestones) "is five feet thick." On the other hand, the 

 only passage of Marcou's writings seen by me in which this 

 formation is spoken of as more- than one bed, is in Blake's 

 publication of his (Marcou's") notes — the same which he has 

 hitherto repudiated with such vehemence but which he now, 

 for the first time in forty years, cites as authority as already 

 noted. But in doing this he even misquotes these notes, 

 which distinctly say that there are three or four of these beds, 

 not five as Professor Marcou now alleges they state (p. 204). 

 It is likewise apparent that Marcou in his various writings has 

 himself variously given a thickness of " 2, 5 " and from " to 

 50 " feet to these beds. The truth of the matter, as shown by 

 Mr. Vaughan in his recent paper,* is that they are probably 

 only two feet thick. 



Such are some of the examples of Professor Marcou's per- 

 verted charges wherein he states that I, who, according to his 

 own statement, am the only man in American science who has 

 endeavored to treat him with courtesy and give his writings 

 due credit, and who has tried to record facts truthfully, have 

 misquoted and corrupted paleontologic facts with a motive. 



*This Journal, July, 1897. 



