Berry — Present Tendencies in Paleontology, 7 



side have lagged behind. Stratigraphic paleontology 

 cannot, however, be divorced from biological paleontol- 

 ogy without becoming sterile. Historical geology which 

 is the ideal we strive for is a vast synthesis woven of 

 many diverse strands — the warp is stratigraphy but the 

 vari-colored woof is furnished by a multitude of criteria 

 and we cannot ignore a single leaf lobe or venation 

 pattern or tooth cusp or bone facet or loop pattern or 

 hinge plate without a knot or break in the fabric. 



Fossils are not to be looked upon merely as medals of 

 creation to be transmitted to the paleontologist for 

 report, resulting usually in a hasty and ill considered 

 list of "sp"-'s, '■ cf "-'s and question marks, to be used as 

 padding for some printed report. Neither is there room 

 in our science for the closet naturalist who cannot see a 

 contract nor tell the bottom from the top of a section in 

 the field. Paleontology is equally crippled whether 

 divorced from biology or stratigraphy. 



Bird's-eye methods that cannot discriminate between 

 mid-Cretaceous and mid-Tertiary Foraminifera are of 

 no service to geology. Loosely drawn genera and spe- 

 cies are no longer useful. Witness the transformation 

 of the genus Olenellus into the wonderful family Mesona- 

 cidae in the skillful hands of a Walcott. The precise 

 systematic methods introduced by Waagen (1869) and 

 so largely exemplified in the work of Ulrich and David 

 White, which seek the recognition of the most minute 

 mutations — often somewhat contemptuously referred to 

 as the splitting of hairs — is the only method by which 

 paleontology can contribute to stratigraphy. In paleo- 

 botany the older bird's-eye obscurantist method has no 

 living champions and the time is not far distant when all 

 loose generic aggregates like Spirifer and Venus or 

 Zamites will join the limbo where now dwell Ammonites, 

 Goniatites and Ceratites, and only emerge as useful 

 descriptive terms pureed of generic significance. The 

 same is true of broadly conceived specific aggregates. 

 The poorer the diagnosis and illustration of a species at 

 the hands of the paleontologist, the greater the variety 

 of diverse things that come to be called by the same 

 name, and I could give you many illustrations proving 

 that the more common names in lists drawn up from dif- 

 ferent regions, particularly if they are the work of the 

 earlier workers, are absolutely worthless. This is espe- 



