PART I. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERSPresent Instability in stratigraphic ClassificationCAUSESThe obvious unrest of the present day in matters pertaining to geologic chronology should be ascribed, 1 think, chiefly to the fact that stratigraphic knowledge has progressed far beyond the stage of prevailing schemes of classification. These schemes do not fit the known conditions. Not only were they founded on a mere fraction of the mass of data now available, but also the criteria used were frequently misinterpreted. Besides, the pioneers in this branch of geology had no conception of the complicated and variable conditions for which we now have to account; hence their practice has resulted in an inconsistent and incongruous arrangement of stratigraphic units.But the weakest feature in these classifications is that their original framers availed themselves almost exclusively of a single kind of evidence, namely, that afforded by the fossil faunas and floras. If the fossils . . .
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E. O. Ulrich (1911) studied this question.