My first field work was at Baraboo, Wisconsin, sixty miles north of Madison. And my first stratigraphic research, if one may call it that, was in correlation of sections of Black Earth, St. Lawrence, and Mendota dolomites (Cambrian) in the vicinity of Madison at a time when E. O. Ulrich maintained that they belonged in different systems. In the preceding summer I had studied fresh-water plankton in northern Iowa under the instruction of Gilbert M. Smith, then Professor of Botany at Wisconsin. And my doctorate thesis pertained to shales and limestones in southwestern Wisconsin and neighboring states. So I am delighted that we could hold the symposium in the fine setting of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

I am particularly grateful to R. H. Dott, Jr., for his having arranged the symposium. Tt was a pleasure to visit again with so many friends and former students and to learn of the continuing progress of study of geosynclines and their sediments. The preceding papers are such excellent summaries that a concluding synthesis would be somewhat redundant. I plan to comment briefly on some of the events that led to the formulation of the description and classification of geosynclinal belts and, then, on misgivings on some models that have been erected.