Berry — Present Tendencies in Paleontology. 3 



the diurnal rotation of the earth writes me that the 

 paleontologic sun is setting in Europe while the dawn is 

 just breaking in America. After making the proper 

 deduction for the felicity of Gallic politeness there is a 

 grain of truth in the figure. 



The two Americas stretching from the abundant Arctic 

 lands to the north of our present continent, southward 

 far into the southern zone, and with a very obvious 

 former connection with Antarctica; possessing a fairly 

 typical representation of all the great systems of rocks 

 except for the weakness of our known Permian, Triassic 

 and Jurassic history, — no region on the earth is as stra- 

 tegically located for the solution of problems of earth 

 history or the former distribution of life — both marine 

 and terrestrial. 



We are, then, "called to a high calling' 7 and have a 

 mission to fulfill beside which the imperialistic dreams 

 of reactionary political prophets are but as ships that 

 pass in the night. 



In paleontology, as in all branches of human endeavor, 

 there is nothing more obstructive of progress than a rev- 

 erence for old ideas and systems which have outlived 

 their usefulness. This is especially to be guarded 

 against in an organization where rules and standards 

 have to be formulated for the guidance of field parties 

 and where there is an obvious necessity for laying down 

 certain classifications for the presentation of results in 

 reports and upon maps. There is a tendency, well illus- 

 trated by the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, 

 for official sanction to lag about a generation behind the 

 advance of knowledge. On the other hand there is the 

 great danger that we in America, in a scientific isolation 

 paralleling our former political isolation, filled with 

 pride at the size of our country and the number of pages 

 of geological contributions printed annually, may neglect 

 not only the past but the present state of our science in 

 other lands. I believe that a knowledge of the historic 

 development of paleontology and the details of the 

 European succession is of the utmost importance, for 

 Europe is after all historically the type continent despite 

 the untypical development in a world sense of so many 

 of its geological horizons. 



Undoubtedly the geological history of North America 

 is much fuller and more normal than that of Europe, as 



