THE LARAMIE FORMATION AND THE SHOSHONE GROUP 39 



Except for the brackish water forms of the Laramie fossils have 

 not been cited in this discussion as characterizing the Laramie or 

 Shoshone beds, although it seems certain that it will be possible, 

 eventually to discriminate between them quite sharply in most cases 

 by means of their fossil remains. It has always been an unfortunate 

 feature in discussions of the Laramie question that there has been 

 so little positive knowledge and so much assumption as to the true 

 stratigraphic relations of fossil-bearing beds. At this time, when so 

 many investigations are in progress, yielding abundant new material 

 and revealing errors or deficiencies in earlier work, it seems best for 

 the stratigrapher to regard the true significance of paleontologic 

 data as imperfectly established, and I prefer to place the responsi- 

 bility for characterizing the faunas and floras of the Laramie or 

 Shoshone beds with the paleontologists. A few general statements 

 may be made in illustration of the present situation. 



Fossil plants are widely distributed in all formations concerned. 

 Without reviewing the early literature of the so-called "Laramie 

 flora, " which was made to include plants actually occurring at vari- 

 ous horizons between the Dakota and Miocene, it may be recalled 

 that Ward's Synopsis of the Laramie Flora, ^^ published in 1885, 

 was characterized by Newberry as "really and only an important 

 contribution to our knowledge of the Fort Union flora."^^ Newberry 

 further maintained that the Laramie (including beds here called the 

 Shoshone Group) and Fort Union floras were totally distinct. Knowl- 

 ton has endorsed Newberry's view as to the essentially distinctive 

 character of the Fort Union flora, '^ and, through study of many 

 new collections, partly gathered in person, he is now in a position 

 to affirm that opinion. By Mr. Knowlton's courtesy I am permitted 

 to refer here to the fact, shown by recent collections, that the Fort 

 Union flora ranges downward into the "Hell Creek beds." The 

 most important collection on which this statement rests was made 

 by Barnum Brown, the plants being in direct association with the 



"Ward, Lester F. : Synopsis of the Flora of the Laramie Group, U. S. 

 Geol. Survey, 6 Ann. Rep., 188, pp. 399-557- 



^« Newberry, J. S. : The Laramie Group, Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 1, 1890, 



P- 525- 



"Knowlton, F. H.: Notes on a Few Fossil Plants from the Fort Union Group 



of Montana, etc., Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XVI, 1893, pp. 33-3(>- 



