The Environment of Vertebrate Life in the Late Paleozoic in North America: A Paleogeographic Study

Abstract

THE following passage from Suess's “Face of the Earth” might be taken as an appropriate text for the work under consideration:—“It is the organic remains, no doubt, which afford us our first and most important aid in the elucidation of the past. But the goal of investigation must still remain the recognition of those great physical changes in comparison with which the changes Iri the organic world only appear as phenomena of the second order, as simple consequences.” Prof. Case's volume may be described as an attempt both to provide an up-to-date corpus of material, often presented in the form of lengthy quotations frQm the writings of American geologists, bearing upon the history of the later Palæozoic period, and to utilise the data as evidence in an inquiry into the physical and climatic conditions under which organisms lived, migrated, or became extinct in different regions of the North American continent.

The Environment of Vertebrate Life in the Late Paleozoic in North America: A Paleogeographic Study.

By Prof. E. C. Case. (Publication No. 283.) Pp. vi + 273. (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1919.) Price 3 dollars.