IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
229 
PERMIAN ROCKS OF EASTERN RUSSIA. 
BY CHARLES R. KEYES. 
(Abstract.) 
In this country the Permian question has long troubled our 
geologists. For more than forty years it has been discussed, 
and up to the present time little advancement appears to have 
been made. Recently, interest has been awakened in the sub- 
ject, and many workers have begun to attack the problems 
anew. 
At first glance the title of this paper would seem to have 
little bearing upon our Iowa geology. Yet, it is directly to 
the Iowa part of the question that the present statements are 
intended to apply. The southwestern part of the state con- 
tains beds that have been placed in the Permian. In the con- 
sideration of the so-called Permian beds in America, few 
workers have been able to compare these formations directly 
with the original Permian. The information has been largely 
second hand, and the literature is to a great extent inaccessible 
on account of being in foreign languages and widely scattered. 
During the geological excursions that preceded and fol- 
lowed the sessions of the International Congress of Geologists 
that were held in St. Petersburg a year ago, a number of 
American workers, interested in the Permian question, were 
able to examine pretty extensively the original beds constitut- 
ing Murchison’s system. The examinations were especially 
instructive, on account of the personal guidance of the Russian 
geologists, who had long worked in the region. Along the 
flanks of the Urals, and in the great valleys of the Kama and 
Volga rivers, the sections were particularly complete. 
The most remarkable feature about the Russian Paleozoic 
strata above the Devonian is, that in nearly every respect, they 
are almost identical with the same parts of the general geolog- 
ical sections developed in the Mississippi valley, as found in 
Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. And, strangely enough, the very 
