Permian Question in America. — Keyes. 221 
geologist familiar with the Kansas formations wrote as follows 
concerning the provincial series question : 'Grant, as Keyes 
maintains, that Permian is the name of a provincial series, then 
where a similar series is found with similar fossils the name 
ought to be given. All our names were names of provincial ser- 
ies at first. What was Devonian but the name of a series of 
rocks in Devonshire, England? When found in Xew York, 
by this argument, they should be called Xew Yorkian or some 
other American name.' " 
Now it is extremely unfortunate that after the geologists 
the world over, and the majority of paleontologists also have 
come to a general understanding to use certain words denoting 
taxonomic rank in a strictly technical sense that some paleon- 
tologists should still insist on using such words in a number of 
very different senses. There are fundamental ideas that no 
mere play of words can alter. The fact that Kansas geologists 
designate single calcareous layers by the exalting title of sys- 
tem, as the Iola Limestone System, for instance, does not delude 
geologists generally into thinking for a moment that the signi- 
fication is the same as for the .whole Carboniferous sequence. 
The statement that "all our names were names of provincial 
series at first" is certainly not correct. The original Devonian 
of England may have lately proved to be merely a provincial 
series in the modern technical significance of the word. But 
before this fact was discovered the term had been found to 
cover sequences equivalent to systems, in other parts of the 
world. If in England the Devonian period is represented only 
by a single stratigraphic series the latter certainly would not be 
called the Devonian series, but a series as yet unnamed. If 
within the Xew York province the Devonian period has but 
one series, it surely would not be denominated the Devonian 
series. The Yorkian series would at least be appropriate and 
certainly proper as a title for these rocks. 
We have a very much better illustration in certain contig- 
uous geographic provinces in the United States. The Missis- 
sippian series of the continental interior represents early Car- 
boniferous sedimentation. In the northern Appalachian pr< \ - 
ince there is also early Carboniferous deposits ; but the series 
represented cannot be advantageously called Mississippian. 
Xor is it Mississippian. Green Briar-Poconoan series may be 
