THE STATE GEOLOGIST. 71 



* * * The beds that seem to be most nearly identical, so far 

 as the plants are concerned, are those of Lunz, in Austria, and of 

 JSFeue Welt, in Switzerland. These have been placed by the best 

 European geologists in the Upper Keuper. Our American Trias 

 [Newark] can scarcely be lower than this, and it probably can 

 not be higher than the Rhsetic beds of Bavaria." 



Newberry was mistaken in supposing that the fishes of the 

 Newark system were not nearly related to those of any European 

 formation, 1 but agreed with the majority of writers in the view 

 that the evidence of fossil plants favored a correlation with the 

 Uppermost Trias. Agassiz 2 at one time expressed an opinion 

 that the fossil fishes of the Virginia area, and "from the so-called 

 New Red Sandsorie, indicate an age intermediate between the 

 European New Red and the Oolite." Later he developed this 

 view so far as to state that the fossils referred to correspond 

 neither with the Triassic fishes of Southern Germany, nor with 

 those from the English Lias, and he accordingly referred the New- 

 ark rocks to a group intermediate between the Trias and Lias, 

 for which there is no European equivalent. 3 



Those desirous of tracing the correspondence between the New- 

 ark fish-fauna and various assemblages of the Alpine Trias may 

 profitably consult the comparative lists given by Baron de Zigno 

 of the species obtained from five well-known localities. In the 

 following table we have arranged his list of the forms occurring 

 at Perledo and that showing the principal American species in 

 parallel columns. For a list of the localities from which fossil 

 fishes have been obtained in greater or less abundance in the New- 

 ark system one may consult page 57 of the correlation paper of 

 I. C. Russell, already referred to. A discussion will also be found ■ 

 in the same paper of the probable physical conditions under which 

 the beds of the Newark system were deposited : 



1 Newberry, J. S., The fauna and flora of the Trias of New Jersey and the 

 Connecticut Valley (Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. vi, pp. 124-128), 1887. 



2 Agassiz, L., Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., vol. iv (1850), p. 276. 



3 Idem, Proc. Amer. Acad., vol. iii (1852-57), p. 69. 



