Correspondence. 395 
substitution of this name throughout for "'Erigan" will remove the dif- 
ficulty and obviate so far as is now possible the confusion which might 
otherwise arise. F. B. Taylok. 
Fort Wayne, Lid. , May 10. 1895. 
A Question of Priouity. In the summer of 1802, while making a 
geological examination in northwestern Texas, I found and collected a 
lot of vertebrate fossils from strata above the Loup Fork beds and be- 
low the beds I had previously described under the name of Blanco beds.* 
These fossils, with others, were sent to Prof. E. D. Cope for identifica- 
tion and description. His paper was published in May. 1893. f In that 
paper he said: 
"A small collection made by Mr. Cummins, near Goodnight, on 
the Staked plains, presents characters which distinguish it from the 
faunje of the Loup Fork and Blanco formations. According to Mr. 
Cummins, the Loup Fork formation is overlaid by a bed of gravel, 
which passes under the fossiliferous formation at Goodnight. He con- 
sequently regards the latter as of later age than the Loup Fork, while he 
thinks it older than the Equus beds of Rock creek. The paleontology 
sustains this view." 
In July, 1893, I published a paper on the geology of northwest TexasJ 
in which I describe the beds under the name of Goodnight division, 
giving a particular description of the locality, stratigraphic position and 
the fossils found in the beds. In that paper I said: 
"At the mouth of Mulberry caiion, south side, five miles southwest 
from the town of Goodnight, in the southeastern edge of Armstrong 
county, there are beds containing fossils difl'ering from the other Ter- 
tiary fossils of the Staked plains, and I have called them Goodnight 
beds for the purpose of referring to them more definitely." 
This ought to have been suflficient to fix the name of the beds if they 
are to be kept up as a separate division. 
In the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. v, 1894, page 
94, there is an abstract of a paper by Prof. W. B. Scott, "The later la- 
custrine formations of the West." In that paper it is said: 
" The latest of the three horizons of the Loup Fork may be called the 
Palo Duro, Cope having found it near the canon of that name in Texas." 
This paper was published on April 30, 1894, at least nine months af 
ter the publication of my description under the name of Goodnight 
division. 
In the fourth edition of Dana's Manual of Geology (1895), on page 
884, in a "Table of the Approximate Equivalency of the Sub-divisions of 
the Tertiary," the name Palo Duro is used for these beds. Again, on 
page 88."), it is used: "Palo Duro beds of Scott; Goodnight beds of 
Cummins, observed near the canon Palo Duro, in Texas, and also in 
northern Kansas." Again, on page 919, the name Palo Duro beds is 
♦Second Annual Report Texas Geological Survey, p. 431, 
t Fourth Annual Report Texas Geological Survey, 
t Fourth Annual Report Texas Geological Survey. 
