Review of Literature. 123 
from fossils collected at theii- base that they are Permian. Hill has 
shown in his Arkansas report the occurrence of typical Red Bed colors 
and gypum and that the upper limits are of Trinity age. (Uppermost 
Jurassic or basal Cretaceous). The fact is tliat the great Red Beds forma- 
tion began in late Carboniferous times, continued during Permian, Trias- 
sic and Jurassic into the lower Cretaceous and shoixld be discussed as a 
structural unit and not a time unit ; the student who will thus treat it 
has a grand field in American geology. 
This Red Beds Premian must not be structurally confused with the 
Permo Carboniferous limestones of Kansas and with the white Permian 
limestones of the Guadalupe mountains as defined by the brothers 
Shumard. It is a later and overlying terrane, especially distinguished 
by complete absence of limestones except one stratum at its very base. 
Page 14 gives a section of the strata from eastern Navarro to Swisher 
county, Texas, including the Cretaceous, Carboniferous and Permian. 
The beds of the Upper Cretaceous Series are treated as distinct forma- 
tions, to-wit : (1) the Timber Creek formation, (2) the Eagle Ford for- 
mation, (3) the Austin formation, (4) the Ripley formation. The re- 
viewer can not agree with this new and inadequate nomenclature in 
place of the one so well established and in local use in the region, nor 
can it fill the stratigraphic requirements. These beds are not formations 
but merely beds on one great formation, and the term Ripley and Tim- 
ber Creek have no meaning in the Texas Region ; Cope showed in the 
American Naturalist, 1887, that the latter name when first applied by 
Hill to the Lower Cross Timber beds had previovsly been applied to a 
terrane in New Jersey, while Hill has shown that the term "Ripley 
group " of Hilgard applied to only one horizon in the Glauconitic or 
Upper division of the Upper Cretaceous series of Texas. Neither does 
the section include the great division known as the Ponderosa marls ly- 
ing along the Austin chalk or the Upper or white cliffs chalk so well 
marked in northeast Texas and Arkansas. 
RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
I. State and Government Reports. 
Reports on the Iron Ore District of East Texas ; from 3nd Ann. Rep. 
Geol. Surv. Texas. 
An account of the progress in Geology for the years 1SS7 and 18SS. 
by W. J. McGee. From the Smithsonian Report for 1888, Washington, 
1890. 
The Iron Ores of Minnesota, by N. H, and H. V. Winchell. Hull. 
No. 6 Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv. of Minn, with niai), •.'•) fig. and 44 
plates, 1891. 
Report on the Cahaba Coal Field, by Joseph Squire, with App. on the 
Geology of the Valley Regions Adjacent, by Eutrene A. Smith, with 
map, 7 plates and .31 figures. tJeol. Surv. of Alabama. 
