PALEOZOICS IN NEW MEXICO 
141 
EDITORIAL 
Discovi:ry of Pajleozoic Formations in Nfw Mexico 
In a somewhat whimsical essay published not so very long ago, 
categorical claim is laid to recent finding of all of the 
older Paleozoic rocks in New Mexico. Assertion of discovery 
seems to be based upon a partial quotation that heretofore it 
had been generally “maintained that there was no evidence that 
Lower Paleozoic formations were present in New Mexico.” Had 
full sentence, instead of only part, been quoted, it would have 
read in place of New Mexico, “around the southern end of the 
Rocky Mountains;” which is a very different thing. Like many 
another tourist in that region, the claimants seem not to have been 
aware of the fact that the Rocky Mountains abruptly terminate 
near the southern Colorado boundary line; and do not traverse 
the Mexican tableland, as Humboldt believed a hundred years 
ago. The full statement concerning the absence of the Paleozoics 
around the southern Rockies therefore still literally obtains. It 
could hardly be stretched so as to apply over a distance beyond 
so far as from Washington to Cincinnati, or from Washington 
to Boston. This fact is lost sight of in frantic haste to anticipate 
other publication. 
Such sweeping assertion of priority of discovery bears strong 
intrinsic evidence of tenderfoot knowledge of the region, and an 
inexcusable want of familiarity with the easily accessible litera¬ 
ture. Even such flagrant mistatement of recorded history would 
not merit serious consideration now, 20 years after, were it not 
for some unaccountable reason that a Federal bureau persistently 
backs up, year after year, as if someone were continually question¬ 
ing its veracity, such bumptuous assertions, especially in one of its 
very latest, most prized, and final publications, despite the cir¬ 
cumstance that its library has long had full and sufficient testi- 
