GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 125 
This is the first draft of the now famous Missouri river section of the Creta- 
ceous. With the publication of this section closes the first period in the history 
of the Dakota group. 
THE MEEK-HAYDEN CONTROVERSY. 
About three months after the reading of the article last referred to, Meek and 
Hayden read another paper, in which they discussed the various members of the 
Cretaceous, and especially No.1. The statement is made that Professor Marcou 
is certainly mistaken in supposing that all the country west of the Missouri river 
was Jurassic, although they admit that their No. 1 may belong to that age.’ 
During the summer of 1856 these gentlemen again visited the region, and in 
November of that year published a paper in which the section given above is 
greatly elaborated. No.1 is described as follows: ‘‘ Heavy-bedded, yellowish 
sandstone, passing downward into alternations of sandstone and clay, containing 
bits of water-worn lignite and bands of dark carbonaceous matter. This forma- 
tion is not positively known to belong to the Cretaceous system.’’ 
And the locality: ‘‘ Near the mouth of the Big Sioux river and between there 
and Council Bluffs.”’ 
In the discussion of the various groups, referring to No. 1, they say: ‘‘We 
think it barely possible that these beds may be older than the Cretaceous. 
If not older than the Cretaceous, we think they probably represent some of the 
older members of that system.’’§ 
On May 12, 1857, Doctor Hayden presented to the Philadelphia academy an 
article entitled ‘‘Notes Explanatory of a Map and Section illustrating the Geo- 
logical Structure of the Country bordering on the Missouri River.’’? On May 26, 
Meek and Hayden read an article containing descriptions of fossils, and remarks 
on the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations of the Northwest.!° These papers are 
quite exhaustive in the discussions of the various formations. The latter paper is 
especially interesting because of the fact that in ita number of comparisons are 
drawn with the Cretaceous of other portions of the United States. Sections are 
given from New Jersey, Alabama, Kansas, New Mexico; and the following con- 
clusions reached regarding the basal member: 
‘*There is at the base of the Cretaceous system, at distinctly separated locali- 
ties in Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Alabama, Texas, and New 
Jersey, a series of variously colored clays and sandstones of great thickness, in 
which organic remains, excepting leaves of trees, apparently dicotyledons, fossil 
wood and obscure casts of shells, are rarely found, but which everywhere pre- 
sents a uniformity of lithological and other characters pointing to a similarity of 
physical conditions during their deposition over immense areas. Although the 
weight of evidence thus far favors the conclusion that this lower series is of the 
same age of the Lower Greensand or Necomian of the old world, yet we await 
positive evidence that portions of it may not be older than any part of the Cre- 
taceous system.”’ 
By March, 1858, they had advanced yet another step, and, after reviewing the 
- evidence of the dicotyledons in the rocks and the position of the adjacent strata, 
they say: ‘‘We think we hazard little in viewing at least a considerable portion 
of No. 1 as belonging to the Cretaceous system.’’ 
In the meantime Maj. F. Hawn had published a paper in which he referred 
to the whole of the sandstone formation in Kansas as Trias.'!'_ Doctor Hayden, in 
a paper before the Philadelphia academy, read July 29, 1858, took exceptions to 
the conclusions of Major Hawn; and, for apparently the first time, placed the 
7. Loc. cit., 8: 111. 8. Proc. Phila. Acad. Sci., 8: 267. 
9. Loc cit., 9: 109-116. 10. Loe. cit., 9: 117-133. 
11. Trias in Kansas, St. Louis Acad. Sci., 1: 171. 
