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GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. v1 
which the reader is referred for the history and bibliography of the subject. This 
history is, in brief, as follows: Owen in 1852, and Swallow in 1855, referred the 
strata at Nebraska City, Neb., to the Upper Carboniferous; the latter to the 
‘Upper Coal Series.’’ Marcou in 1855 published a geological map of the United 
States in which these rocks were referred to the Triassic. In 1857 Hayden pub- 
lished a map representing them as Carboniferous. In 1864 Marcou published 
sections of these rocks referring them to the Permian, and the next year Meek 
criticizes him and refers them to the Upper Coal Measures. In 1866 Geinitz 
concludes with Marcou that they are Permian. In 1872 Meek published his 
Final Report, concluding that the rocks belonged to the Upper Coal Measures, 
and all later work has corroborated him in this opinion. 
After an extended study of the Permian and Coal Measures in Kansas, Pro- 
fessor Prosser, in the article referred to, gives the results of his observations on 
the rocks of eastern Nebraska, based on their relation to the Cottonwood lime- 
stone above. He thinks that the rocks at Nebraska City belong to either the 
lower portion of the Wabaunsee formation or the upper part of the underlying 
formation, for he says that ‘‘ Meek found Spirifer cameratus in the limestone 
above the coal, associated with plenty of other fossils characteristic of the Upper 
Coal Measures, and that it is clearly shown by the stratigraphy and paleontology 
that all the Paleozoic rocks in the vicinity of Nebraska City belong to the Upper 
Coal Measures ( Missourian) instead of the Dyas ( Permian), as claimed by Mar- 
cou. The writer is not confident whether the Nebraska City beds should be re- 
ferred to the upper part of the Missouri formation or to the Wabaunsee formation 
of the Missourian series. However, the faunal and lithologic characters of these 
beds agree quite closely with those of the lower half of the Wabaunsee forma- 
tion as shown along the Kansas river above Topeka, and so the writer refers them 
provisionally to it” (page 20, reprint). Also, on page 18 (reprint), speaking of 
the shales used for vitrified bricks at the Nebraska City works, occupying the 
position of Meek’s original section, he remarks that these ‘‘shales are mostly of 
a drab color, somewhat micaceous as well as clayey, and resemble those used for 
vitrified bricks at the Topeka, Kan., works.’’ He also studied the rocks of the 
bluffs on the west side of the Missouri as far as the Platte river, where the 
Paleozoic is covered by the Cretaceous. He says: ‘‘On the Platte river [near 
Louisville] the Permian is not represented and the Dakota sandstone rests un- 
conformably on the limestones and shales of the Wabaunsee formation. This is, 
consequently, a very important section, as it shows that the 800 feet of Permian 
rocks exposed along the Kansas and Smoky Hill rivers in Kansas have disap- 
peared and the Dakota sandstone of the Cretaceous system rests on the Wa- 
baunsee formation of the Missourian series of the Upper Carboniferous. This 
conclusion agrees with that of Doctor Hayden, who on his geological map of Ne- 
braska in 1858 represented the Lower Cretaceous (now known as the Dakota 
sandstone) on the Platte river as resting on the Carboniferous.”’ 
While Prosser finds the Cretaceous resting on the Wabaunsee formation on 
the Platte, yet he finds the Cottonwood formation four miles west of Auburn, 
Neb., at an elevation of about 345 feet above the Missouri river, and the 
base of the Permian is probably found in Gage county; and Knerr recognizes 
over 200 feet of Permian in Marshall county, Kansas * (adjoining Gage county, 
Nebraska, on the south). 
The works of Meek and Prosser agree very well. Meek positively locates the 
rocks along the lower part of the Missouri river in Nebraska in the Upper Coal 
Measures. Prosser also locates them in the Upper Coal Measures and provision- 
* Univ. Geol. Sury. Kans., vol. I, p. 144. 
