GERARD V. MIDDLETON Department of Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton 16, Ontario, Canada

Johannes Walther's Law of the Correlation of Fades

ABSTRACT

The writings of Johannes Walther (1860-1937) have been neglected in the west and his Law of the Correlation (or Succession) of Facies has been ignored or misstated in many textbooks of stratigraphy. Walther should be recognized as a pioneer stratigrapher-sedi-mentologist, important as both a world travel-ler and explorer of modern sedimentary envi-ronments (deserts, reefs, laterites), and as a theorist. His main theoretical contributions were his championing of the actualistic method for the study of fossils and sedimentary rocks and his founding of the science of comparative lithology. Comparative lithology was seen by Walther as the analogue for sedimentary rocks of comparative anatomy for fossils. It has been neglected in the West until the recent revival of the concept of facies models.

Walther's Law was the key concept within comparative lithology, and was originally stated as follows: " T h e various deposits of the same facies areas and similarly the sum of the rocks of different facies areas are formed beside each other in space, though in cross-section we see them lying on top of each other. As with biotopes, it is a basic statement of far-reaching significance that only those facies and facies areas can be superimposed primarily which can be observed beside each other at the present t ime."

In Russia, Walther's writings appear to have had a greater influence than they have had in Europe and America. They have been partly responsible for the development there of "lithology" as a branch of the geological sci-ences separate from stratigraphy or petrology.

INTRODUCTION The name of Johannes Walther is not well

known to the present generation of English-

speaking stratigraphers and sedimentologists. If Walther is known at all, it is as the author of Walther's Law of Correlation of Facies. Walther was indeed one of the first geologists to give a thorough discussion of the concept of facies: he was also the first to formulate the modern concept of diagenesis (Dunoyer de Segonzac, 1968). Unfortunately, neither of these impor-tant concepts was popular among geologists writing in English until recent times.

The history of the concept of facies has been reviewed by Teichert (1958), Markevich (1960), and others. The concept received little discussion in the classic textbooks of geology by Lyell, Geikie, Chamberlain and Salisbury, Lake and Restall, and others. Even textbooks of stratigraphy, which could scarcely avoid the concept, managed to avoid the use of the term or to use it only rarely and with a minimum of theoretical discussion (for example, Marr, 1898). The main exceptions to this generaliza-tion are the works of A. W. Grabau, particu-larly his Principles of Stratigraphy (1913). Grabau, however, was driven out of America by anti-German feeling after the First World War. His writings were for a time overshad-owed by the anti-facies interpretations of E. O. Ulrich (Dunbar and Rodgers, 1957, p. 284-288).

In the preface to his book Time in Stratigra-phy, Shaw (1964, p. ix) remarks that he first became interested in the lateral and vertical relations between facies, discussed at length in his book, by reading a reprint of Grabau's paper "Types of sedimentary overlap" (Gra-bau, 1906). After Shaw's book was written, a reader told him that the main principle formu-lated in it was a restatement of Walther's Law, a law which Shaw had never heard of at that time.

This does not mean that Shaw, and other American geologists who had never heard of

Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 84, p. 979-988, March 1973

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980 G. V. MIDDLETON

Walther, had not been indirectly influenced by him. Grabau was certainly strongly influenced by Walther (Dunbar and Rodgers, 1957, p. 136) and dedicated his Principles of Stratigraphy to him. It is probably not coincidental that Grabau's main writings on the subject of facies relations appeared just a few years after Walther's major work on the topic (Walther, 1893-1894). Walther's influence can also be traced, through citation or direct acknowledg-ment, on most of the pioneer American sedi-mentologists, including Joseph Barrell, P. D. Trask (Trask, 1941), Charles Schuchert, and W. H. Twenhofel (Twenhofel, 1938).

It is thus remarkable that, in the first major American work on facies, the symposium orga-nized by the Geological Society of America in 1948 (Longwell, 1949), there was not a single citation of Walther's writings and there was no explicit (though many implicit) references to the Law of Correlation of Facies. The law was also not mentioned by Dunbar and Rodgers (1957) or by Teichert (1958) although these authors gave extensive discussions of the con-cept of facies and were all familiar with Walther's writings.

Most popular texts on stratigraphy either failed to mention Walther's Law (for example, Krumbein and Sloss, 1951; Weller, 1960) or stated it inadequately or incorrectly (see Gignoux, 1955; Krumbein and Sloss, 1963; Woodford, 1965). Visher (1965), in an influen-tial paper on the use of the vertical profile in environmental reconstruction, gave promi-nence to Walther's Law, which he claimed "stated that where there are no time breaks in a stratigraphic section, those sediments which were areally adjacent must succeed each other vertically." Unfortunately, this is not what Walther wrote or meant. A correcl state-ment of the law was, however, given by Lom-bard (1956, p. 433), who quotes from Walther's original German and gives a translation into French.

In this paper, I hope to show, not merely that Walther's Law has been persistently ig-nored or misstated by English-speaking geolo-gists, but also that the law itself must be understood in the larger theoretical context in which it was developed by Walther. Seen in this context, it was an outstanding theoretical advance for its time (1894). Furthermore, Johannes Walther was himself too important a figure to deserve the neglect that he has re-ceived from English-speaking geologists. On

the contrary, his influence, though unacknowl-edged, has been so pervasive that Walther must be named with Sorby, Gilbert, Grabau, and a few others, ELS one :>f the founders of the modern sciences of sediinentology and paleo-ecology.

WALTHER'S IMPORTANCE IN THE HISTORY OF STRATIGRAPHY AND SEDIMENTOLOGY

Johannes Walther was born in Germany in 1860 and died there in 1937. His early studies were paleontological a nd biological and in-cluded an important study of calcareous algae and algal limestones in the Gulf of Naples (1885). Later, he returned to the gulf and pub-lished a detailed study of the "Taubenbank" (Pigeon Bank) and its ::auna (1910). His inter-est in marine ecology continued throughout his life and led him to carry out studies in the Red Sea (Friedman, 1968), the coast of Ceylon, and the North Sea. Walther may, in fact, be considered to be one of the founders of modern paleoecology, and the first two volumes of his great work Einleitung in die Geologie als historische Wissenschaft (1893) were devoted to this topic.

Throughout most of his life, Walther trav-elled extensively. He visited Asia (1888, 1889, 1897), Africa (1887, 1911), Australia (1914), and North America (1891, 1927). His main interests, beside palececology, included modern and ancient deserts. His most successful book was a comprehensive account of deserts, first published in 1900 and revised through three subsequent editions (Walther, 1924). In addi-tion, Walther wrote extensively on laterite, on the geology and soils of Germany, on the teach-ing of geology, and on the poet, Goethe. It is surprising and regrettable that none of Wal-ther's major works were translated into En-glish, though at least two of his books were translated into Russian (see Twenhofel, 1938). Further details of his life and works are given in his obituaries by Twenhofel (1938) and Weigelt (1937).

Walther was a student of Haeckel, Zirkel, and Zittel: he was well trained in biology as well as in geology, and he studied recent sedi-ments with the leading English worker of the day, Sir John Murray. He was interested in the teaching of geology (particularly in the schools) and for 24 years lie was Professor of Geology and Paleontology at the University of Halle (1906 to 1930). His student, Weigelt, who fol-

JOHANNES WALTHER'S LAWCORRELATION OF FACIES 981

lowed him in the chair at Halle, has made im-portant contributions to "Aktuopalontologie" and Walther's works have no doubt influenced workers in this field (for example, Schfer, 1962). But Walther seems to have founded no influential school of geology in Germany. The leading paleontologists, sedimentologists, and stratigraphers who followed Walther in Ger-many (Brinkmann, Correns, Richter) do not seem to have been strongly influenced by him.

Rudolf Richter, in particular, whose interest in "Aktuopalontologie" and whose founding of the Senckenberg Institute for Marine Ge-ology and Biology at Wilhemshaven has done so much to advance the fields of paleoecology and sedimentology, was apparently not much influenced by Walther. Richter's interest in modern organisms and sediments arose inde-pendently, as a result of his studies on the functional morphology of trilobites.

Walther's direct influence was felt more strongly in Russia than in the western world. A study of Walther's life and work has been published in Russian by Vyssotzky (1965). The Russian petrologist, Loewinson-Lessing, in his Historical Survey of Petrology (1954), ranks Walther as one of the main exponents of actualism in geology. He singles out the Chal-lenger reports (Murray and Renard, 1891) and Walther's work on deserts (1900) as " t h e two important landmarks in the development of sedimentary petrology. . . . In my opinion, the work of Walther (1894) is the corner stone of modern comparative sedimentary petrology" (Loewinson-Lessing, 1954, p. 14-15). Rukhin (1961, p. 13) credits Walther for showing that actualism is not so much a principle of geology as a working method. He states (1961, p. 33) that it was Walther who introduced into geology the method of comparative lithology for the study of sedimentary rocks. The term "comparative lithology" sounds strange to western sedimentologists, though it occurs often in Russian writings.

It is doubtful that any western writer would have made claims for Walther comparable to those found in the works of Russian geologists. Walther is not even mentioned in the historical reviews of sedimentary petrology given by Milner (1962) and Pett i john (1968). WALTHER'S ACTUALISM A N D COMPARATIVE LITHOLOGY

Walther himself did not use the terms "actualism" or "uniformitarianism." He pre-

ferred to write of the "Ontological Method," which he regarded as the complement of the "Paleontological Method." The term "ontol-ogy" is used in philosophy for a branch of meta-physics, but Walther's usage was quite different. He explained (for example, 1925, p. 8) that be-cause the present is the key to the past, it is important for geologists to study modern environments and processes. " In this ontologi-cal way (Ontology = the study of present natural phenomena) ancient paleontological events will be understood (Paleontology = the science of ancient phenomena)."

In his Introduction to Geology as Historical Science (1893, p. xii), he explained that the most satisfying genetic explanations of ancient phenomena were by analogy with modern geological processes. This is the kind of explana-tion generally called actualistic, but called by Walther the ontological method. " I t consists in trying to investigate the events of the past through modern phenomena. From being (existence), we explain becoming (genesis)."1 The whole book was devoted to illustrating this guiding principle.

The first volume of the book was a synthesis of marine ecology. The second volume used knowledge of the life of modern marine animals to understand the life of the main groups of fossil animals. The first volume contained a clearly enunciated "Law of the Correlation of Biotopes (Lebensbezirke)," which was an exact parallel to the Law of Correlation of Facies that appeared in the third volume. After consider-ing the factors that control the distribution of organisms, Walther concluded, " T h e correla-tion of biotopes in time is the necessary conse-quence of the spatial relations and the physio-logical coherence of the medium. It is funda-mental that only those biotopes can follow each other in time, or geologically speaking, can be deposited one above the other, which adjoin one another in space at the present time" (Walther, 1893, p. 195, Walther's emphasis).

The third volume of the book Modern Lithogenesis (Lithogenesis der Gegenwart) at-tempted to do for sedimentary rocks what was achieved for fossils in the first two volumes. The method to be used was explained by Walther in a long section (Chaps. 27 through 31) entitled "Bases of Comparative Lithol-ogy." It is in this section (Chap. 27) that the statement of the Law of Correlation of Facies

1 "Aus dem Sein erklren wir das W e r d e n . "

982 G. V. MIDDLETON

first appears. The importance of this section is such that a complete English translat on has been prepared (see also a long review in English by Quereau, 1894). Copies may be obtained from me upon request. The following para-graphs summarize Walther's line of thought in Chapter 27 in this section.

Walther began by recognizing the incom-pleteness of both the sedimentary and fossil records. The problem of incompleteness was solved for paleontology by Cuvier when he invented the method of comparative anatomy, and it will be similarly solved for sedimentary rocks only by establishing a science of compara-tive lithology. In comparative anatomy, recon-struction of missing organs is possible because of knowledge of the mutual interrelationships of organs; that is, by using the "Correlation of Organs." By analogy, in studying the distribu-tion of animals (ecology or paleoecology) tne incompleteness of the record will be overcome by studying the "Correlation of Biotopis" (see above). For rocks, comparative lithology will make use of an analogous "Correlation of Fades."

"Comparative lithology . . . makes genetic comparisons, and of all the qualities of a rock, gives those first place that the rock received when it was first formed. . . . We do not distin-guish between essential and accessory compo-nents of a rock type, but between primary and secondary qualities; and we understand under the first group those qualities which a rock possessed when it was still subject to the condi-tions of formation of its facies-area [Faziesbe-zirke], while all those rock qualities acquired through diageneis or metamorphism are con-sidered secondary" (1894, p. 976).

The primary qualities of the rock are strongly dependent on what Walther called the "cli-mate": "the sum of the meteorological and oceanographical conditions for inorganic and organic processes" (1894, p. 977), and conse-quently the "climate" of the facies-area (the depositional environment, as we would now say) can be inferred from the primary qualities.

But such is the incompleteness of the record that we cannot be content to interpret only those rocks still preserved. When we look at modern deposits, we see that there are causal connections between different deposits. "The various deposits of the same facies-ana and similarly the sum of the rocks of d: Terent facies-areas are formed beside each otaer in space, though in a cross-section we see them

lying on top of each other. As with biotopes, it is a basic statement of far-reaching significance that only those facies and facies-areas can be superimposed primai ily which can be observed beside each other at the present time" (1894, p. 979, my emphasis. Walther emphasized the second part cf the sentence by increasing the spacing between letters).

This is the original statement of the Law of Correlation of Facies. Walther himself explic-itly designated it as a "law" or "rule" (Gesetz). In his later writings Walther retained his original phrasing, so that there is no justifi-cation in his work; for subsequent misstate-ments of the law.

The various facies (Walther continued) are characterized not only by depositional processes but also by erosional processes. There is also an intimate: connection between the biological and sedimentological processes, which must have existed in the past as it does at present. The model'n examples do not include all those that have been important in the past but they suffice for beginning the tasks of historical geology.

The problem of distinguishing between zone fossils and facies fossils is not one that can be solved from study o.f the ancient record alone. "Only the oncological method can save us from stratigraphy, and only the laws of the correla-tion of facies are in the position to broaden our knowledge. Every iacies is related to other, contemporaneous facies and when we want to interpret a fossil deposit, we must compare it with the sediments it is connected with at the present time. We must search in the surround-ings of the fossil deposit and complete the miss-ing facies according to the laws of correlation, just as the paleontologist completes his frag-mentary remains by following the laws of the correlation of organs" (1894, p. 981). COMMENTARY

The significance of Walther's Law is con-siderably enhanced when it is seen within the context of hi; methodology of comparative lithology. It can also be seen that three crucial aspects of the law are lost in the usual misstate-ment of the law: " t h : same facies sequences are seen laterally .s vertically."

The first important aspect of the law is its actualistic basis: " . . . only those facies . . . can be superimposed . . . which can be observed beside each other at the present time.'" As we have seen, t h : actualistic approach was the

JOHANNES WALTHER'S LAWCORRELATION OF FACIES 983

underlying basis for all of Walther's thought. Relationships between modern environments and facies were clearly considered by him to be the essential key to any interpretation of ancient sequences. The law can certainly not be regarded as expressing simply a statistical regularity observed in the stratigraphic record. More than statistical correlation is implied in the original statement of the law which makes clear the causal relationship upon which the law is based.

It should not be concluded, however, that Walther was unaware of the fact that there exist ancient facies for which there may be no exact modern equivalent. In fact, Walther re-jected an extreme uniformitarianism and was one of the first authors to consider the possi-bility of progressive changes i r the nature of facies throughout geological time (Strakhov, 1964). But he believed that comparison with recent environments would always provide the essential clues for interpretation of the ancient facies, just as the anatomy of modern organisms has provided the essential clues to reconstruc-tion of extinct species.

The second important aspect of the law fol-lows from the first: the law is not reversible, as the misstatement implies, but it states a con-clusion about the vertical sequence of facies that follows from observations on the horizontal sequence of environments. It does not state that the vertical sequence always reproduces the horizontal sequence, but that " . . . only those facies. . . can be superimposed . . ." which can now be seen developing side by side. It follows that an "ideal cycle" that includes all of the facies developed in a cyclic stratigraphic body, may have no real existence in that body. Walther's Law leads us to expect that each facies will show only certain transitions to other facies, but it does not suggest that all of the genetically related facies can be arranged in a single sequence, because some facies may repre-sent alternatives at a given stage in the devel-opment of any particular cycle. This crucial point seems to have been lost sight of until it was restated by Duff and Walton (1962).

The third aspect of the law, that is lost in the usual misstatement of the law, is its intended function within the larger science of compara-tive lithology. As further elaborated by Walther in a later chapter of his book (1894, Chap. 28), he did not regard lithology as synonymous with petrology. Similar rock types might be either homologous ("originated in

the same facies-area," Walther, 1894, p. 985; for example, deposited in the same environ-ment) or analogous. Analogous rock types are similar in some essential aspects, but originate in completely different environments. An ex-ample, cited by Walther, is red mud that might be deposited at the mouth of a tropical river, or as a deep-sea ooze, or that might be a terra rossa. Lithology is concerned with original depositional, or Walther's "primary," charac-teristics. It seeks to distinguish these from the secondary or diagenetic characteristics, and to interpret the former mainly in terms of envi-ronment of formation.

Individual facies, however, cannot be inter-preted by themselves: it is too difficult to draw a unique interpretation from the petrological character of any single facies, and the strati-graphic record is too fragmentary to permit an interpretation to emerge from the rocks alone. As Walther puts it, "only the ontological method can save us from stratigraphy." That is, only knowledge of facies relationships drawn from study of modern environments can save us from the barren cataloging of rock and fossil sequences that sometimes passes for stra-tigraphy.

Since Walther, there have been many stratigraphers who have not seen, as he had, the importance of an actualistic approach to the study of sedimentary sequences. In the West, the modern science of sedimentology had its origin at least in part in the conscious at tempt of some geologists (not a few of them directly influenced by Walther) to devise alternatives to the taxonomic approach to stratigraphy.

WALTHER'S ORIGINALITY A N D INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

The concept of facies was of course not original to Walther. Scholarly accounts of the many different interpretations that have been given to this concept, including those of Walther, may be found in papers by Teichert (1958) and Markevich (1960). According to Markevich, Walther was not entirely clear in his usage of the term: he meant by facies either "different aspects of contemporaneously formed rocks" or "a lithologic expression of a sedimentary environment. . . ." In the discus-sion given above, Walther is clearly using the term in the latter sensehis term for "environ-ment" is "facies-area" [Faciesbezirke].

Nor was Walther's concept of diagenesis

984 G. V. MIDDLETON

original, though he was the first to give a full discussion of diagenesis and to use the term in its usual modern usage (Dunoyer de Segorzac, 1968). T h e idea of diagenetic changes in sedi-ments goes back at least to Hut ton, if not to much earlier writers.

Walther made no claim to originality in these matters. But clearly he did regarc, his comparative lithology and his Laws of Correla-tion of Biotopes and Facies as original contri-butions to the methodology of geology. At various places he wrote of the laws (plural) of correlation of facies, indicating that he thought that his general law should be made specific by later studies that would reveal in detail the actual relations between sedimentary environ-ments, relations that were only partly known to Walther himself.

I t has been suggested by certain Russian authors (Sokratov, 1948; Vassoevitch, 1959; Markevich, 1960; Rukhin, 1961), and the sug-gestion has been reported by western authors (Gignoux, 1955; Lombard, 1956; Krumbein and Sloss, 1963), that Walther's Law was actually stated much earlier by Golovkinskii (1868, according to Markevich, 1960) who was also the first, according to Markevich (1960), to introduce the term facies in the Russian literature. After Golovkinskii the idea wr.s also expressed by Inostranzev (1872, according to Markevich, 1960), who wrote a paper entitled "Laws of Facies Correlation" in which he stated (according to Vassoevitch, 1959) that " the vertical sequence of strata must also ap-pear in lateral sequence and vice-versa."

It is difficult to judge this claim without access to the original Russian papers, but from accounts given by Sokratov (1948), Vassoevitch (1959), and Markevich (1960) it seems to be only partly justified. Markevich (1960, no. 6) notes that Golovkinskii " . . . established that, depending on oscillation of the basin bottom, the type of deposits change in both the vertical and horizontal direction along the layer with the changes taking place consistently." Golov-kinskii's diagram, reproduced by Markevich, shows that Golovkinskii understood that the same sequence of deposits might be observed in the vertical as in the horizontal direction. Thus this aspect of Walther's Law was antici-pated by Golovkinskii and by Inostranzev. But, as argued above, this is only the most primitive aspect of Walther's Law, anc. omits the emphasis on modern environments, the causal structure of the law, and its setting within the science of comparative lithology.

Golovkinskii and Inostranzev should, indeed, be honored as pioneer students and theorists of facies changes, but there seems to me no in-justice in continuing tc call the Law of Correla-tion of Facies, Walther's Law.

Rukhin (1961) credits Walther with being the founder of comparative lithology. Other Russian writers (for example, Zhemchuzhini-kov, 1959; Strakhov, 1970) stress the impor-tance to subsequent Russian studies of the work Upper Cretaceous Deposits of the South-west of European Russia, published by Arkhan-gelsky in 1912. In this work, according to Zhemchuzhinikov (1959), Arkhangelsky "in-troduced a new and substantial contribution to facies study. Using the so-called comparative paleogeographical method, he began to treat the conception of facies from the genetic, paleogeographic: or paleogeomorphic point of view." Strakhov (1970) dates the origin of "lithology" as between 1915 and 1925. He mentions, besides Arkhangelsky's work on the Cretaceous, his comparison of Caucasian Neo-gene deposits with Black Sea deposits (1927) and his work on bauxites (1937). Kazakov's (1938) theory for the: origin of phosphates and Strakhov's own studies of the relation between climate and iron-ore sedimentation are cited as early, influential examples of comparative lithology. In 1945, Strakhov wrote that " the most important problem of the lithology of sedimentary rocks now involves reworking the available . . . facts inta . . . an understanding of sedimentation as a regularly developing histori-cal-geological process. . . . The basic . . . way of achieving this goal is i comparative lithological s tudy" (from Strakhov, 1970).

Since that time a variety of research has been carried on in Russia under the general title of "lithology" (Anonymous, 1967, 1970). These studies are of many different types and would be described in the west as sedimentary petrology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, or geo-chemistry. Nevertheless, it seems possible to discern one type of emphasis that is central to "l i thology": the interpretation of sedimentary rocks in terms of facies and environments of deposition. The discussion of mechanisms and processes of formation of sedimentary struc-tures and rock, type:;, which forms such a large part of sedimentological literature in the West, is peripheral to the main aim of "lithology," which is to describe and interpret sedimentary facies and to develop larger theories of sedi-mentary lithogenesi; (see for example, Rukhin, 1961, or Strakhov, 1970).

JOHANNES WALTHER'S LAWCORRELATION OF FACIES 985

In such theories, concepts such as sedimen-tary differentiation and the role of climate and tectonics play an important part. By no means can all of these features be traced back to the influence of Walther's writings. Walther ap-pears to have had little idea of the important role of tectonics in lithogenesis and his writings are almost devoid of the geochemical emphasis which is a distinctive and indigenous aspect of Russian "lithology." But in his use of the term "comparative lithology," in his emphasis on actualism and the importance of "climate" in its broadest sense, and in his emphasis on facies and the environmental interpretation of the "pr imary" qualities of sedimentary rocks, Walther's work seems to have more in common with Russian studies than with most western studies published before 1960.

In the West, Walther's influence was felt mainly through the writings of men such as Barrell, Grabau, Schuchert, Trask, and Twen-hofel. More recently, the concept of facies models, developed during the 1950s and 1960s, and based on studies by Nanz (1954), Fisk (1955), Potter (1959), Pryor (1960), and Petti-john (1962), has much in common with Walther's comparative lithology. As stated by Pryor (1960), "this viewpoint holds that the vast majority of sedimentary rocks belong to relatively small numbers of recurring patterns of sedimentation and that both the patterns of deposition and accompanying sedimentary as-sociations are closely related to the tectonic control and type of depositional basin."

What is shared by the concept of facies models and comparative lithology is the em-phasis on facies, depositional environments, and actualistic models, together with the belief that the number of natural associations is not infinitely large and that it is possible to discover certain rules of association (Walther's specific "Laws of Correlation") of both modern and ancient facies (see Visher, 1965). Most of the proposed models have in fact been based on a well-described set of modern environments (the Mississippi delta, the Galveston barrier, and so forth) just as Walther would have wished.

There are, of course, elements in the modern concept of facies models that Walther did not anticipate. For example, as stressed by Potter and Pett i john (1963, p. 226) " t h e sedimentary model differs from the earlier at tempts at synthesis or basin analysis in that the paleo-current system provides the integrating frame-work. . . ." We note, finally, that the concept of tectonic control of sedimentation appears to

have originated in Europe in the works of early Alpine geologists (see Hsu, 1970). It was devel-oped in the 1930s, to apply to control of the composition of individual rock types, by Shvetsov and other Russian lithologists (Khain and Sheynmann, 1962) before being further elaborated in America by Krynine (see Folk and Ferm, 1966).

Many geologists have contributed to the development of knowledge about sedimentary facies. It has not been my intention in this paper to claim for Walther a unique or wholly exceptional place in the history of geology but simply to correct some mistaken impressions of his work, to draw the work to the attention of those English-speaking geologists who have neglected it for so long, and to illustrate, per-haps, how the barriers of language contribute to the growth of regional "schools" of geo-logical thought.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing this paper, I have benefited from

the advice of' K. A.W. Crook, G. Dunoyer de Segonzac, A. G. Fischer, G. M. Friedman, H. Fiichtbauer, H. Holder, F. J. Pett i john, H. Reading, A. Seilacher, and C. Teichert. I am indebted to G. F. Krasheninnikov for drawing my attention to Vyssotzky's book on Walther. I extend my thanks for the hospitality of the Department of Geology and Mineralogy, Ox-ford. Financial support was provided by the National Research Council of Canada.

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Duff, P.M.D., and Walton, E. K., 1962, Statistical basis for cyclothemsA quantitative study of the sedimentary succession in the East Pennine Coalfield: Sedimentology, v. 1, p. 235-255.

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Dunoyer de Segonzac, G., 1968, The birth and development of the concept of diagenesis (1866-1966): Earth-Sci. Rev., v. 4, p. 153-201.

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Friedman, G. M., 1968, Geology and geochemistry of reefs, carbonate sediments, and waters, Gulf of Aqaba (Elat), Red Sea: Jour. Sed. Petrol-ogy, v. 38, p. 895-919.

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Grabau, A. W., 1906, Types of sedimentary over-lap: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 17, p. 567-636.

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M A N U S C R I P T R E C E I V E D BY THE SOCIETY J U N E 9 , 1972

R E V I S E D M A N U S C R I P T R E C E I V E D SEPTEMBER 2 2 , 1972