TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 229 



sedentary sand dunes. Besides those mentioned above, the sandhill region 

 west of Abilene belongs to this class. 



I will make here a further note on easterly extension of the cretaceous 

 and refer briefly to some beds higher than the Niobrara, which are well de- 

 veloped in northwestern Kansas. Eleven years ago, in this Academy, I 

 drew attention to some shale in Norton county in that position. I have now 

 no doubt that these higher shales belong to the Fort Pierre group. At the 

 mouth of Prairie Dog creek, just over the line in Nebraska, they are developed 

 strongly, and all the way from this west up the Republican valley and all its 

 forks, as well as the Sappa and Beaver valley. In the former, this goes 

 way into Colorado; on the South Fork, to its very head; and they are de- 

 veloped very strongly north of the Union Pacific road from Hugo to Limon. 

 The eastern front in Kansas is not all shown; but it may be presumed there 

 is some in the northwest of Phillips county, and on the Prairie Dog-Solomon 

 watershed, and in Graham county and northern Gove. They show well 

 above the Niobrara on the slope to the Smoky south of Winona, in Logan 

 county. There are abundant outcrops on both forks of the Smoky, but the 

 east front on the south is over on Butte creek, and is shown again on the 

 White Woman, in Greeley county. I am not certain that here I have found 

 its further extension: but, as it does not show in the Arkansas valley in 

 Kansas, it may be assumed that its trend south of latitude 38 degrees 30 min- 

 utes is west. 



The general direction of this trend of the easterly front is roughly parallel 

 with what we have understood usually is the direction of the east front of 

 the other cretaceous formations. 



One or two paleontologic facts are in evidence as to the age of these shales. 

 I have before me, as I write, specimens of Baculites ovatus, which were ob- 

 tained in what is now Logan county, 20 years ago. This year I have obtained 

 Inoceramas crispii, var. barabini, from the shales of the Republican valley, 

 just east of Benkelman, Neb.; and in Cheyenne county, Kansas, I have ob- 

 tained both the Baculite and the Inoceramus. These are characteristic Fort 

 Pierre fossils. Lucina is also in the shales in Colorado. 



