33-4 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



From base upward : 



. _ Ft. In. 



1. "White sandstone coucretiouarv, weatheriug in cavities, with abundance 



of fiicoids ". 118 



2. Shale and lire-clay 16 



•X Coal 4 



4. Jjlack, soft laminated shale 10 



5. Fire-clay, gray and chocolate colored 5 U 



G. Coal, (main) 8 



7. Argillaceous and sandy yellowish shale, with a quantity of dicotyled- 

 onous leaves - 10 9 



8. Coal-streak 3 



9. Argillaceous shale and clay , 7 



10. Shaly sandstone, often ferruginous 10 U 



Above this, and on tlie other side of the hills toward the station, the 

 sandstone with the characters indicated for No. 1 of tbe section, ascends 

 to the level of this section, does not contain any coal, and is overlaid 

 still by about 50 feet of measures, mostly shale clay-beds, with fossil- 

 shells mixed with plants. There is, too, a stratum of ashes or baked 

 clay, where bones of a Saurian, shells, dicotyledonous and Sabal leaves 

 are mixed in a confused mass.* Though the best parts of the Saurian had 

 been taken out already, I got some specimens bearing on the same 

 pieces, fragments of bones, shells, and fossil-leaves. About at the same 

 level, and a few hundred yards northwest, the top hills are composed 

 oif baked red sbale, where specimens of dicotyledonous leaves and 

 small shells are also found mixed together. In the strata marked 

 on the section, other kinds of remains, too, have to be mentioned. The 

 sandstone No. 1 of the above section has fucoidal remains beautifully 

 preserved. One specimen of Ilallmenetes is seen in an erect i^ositiou 

 unfolding its branches about 10 feet high, with a stem more than 1 inch 

 "wide, as clearly defined upon the vertical face of the sandstone as if 

 l^ainted there by hand. It is upon a large detached block quite near 

 the mine on the side of the railroad. The sandstone itself, full of round 

 concretions varying from the size of an egg to that of the head, is 

 molded and dug by weathering in still more diversified and remarkable 

 forms than the same sandstone at the Ilaton Mouiitains.f In the hills 

 facing the depot, its walls are dug into a multitude of niches of every 

 size and form, which the children of the station use as store-rooms for 

 play, and where they expose, as in cabinets or shops, the various and 

 curiously molded concretions found around in the sand. And above the 

 main coal, too, the shale of the stratum marked No. 7 of the section 

 has the best-preserved specimens of fossil-leaves found as yet in the 

 Tertiary formations of ours, iind this in profusion. Indeed the whole 

 country at and around Black Butte otfers rich mines of interesting and 

 valuable materials for the study of the geologist and paleontologist. 



At Eock Spring, as said above, the upper strata of the same forma- 

 tion come to the surface, and there a splendid bed of lignite 8 to 9 feet 

 thick has been worked for a long time, from just above thick banks of 

 white fucoidal sandstone. In this sandstone the remains of marine 

 plants are as numerous as at Black Buttes, and as well preserved, too. 

 This sandstone, from the section given below, is, with its alternate beds 

 of hardened clay shale, about 100 feet thick. Most of its strata are 



* A large Diuosaurian discovered by Professor B. F. Meek, and dug out in pieces by 

 Professor E. D. Cope. American Journal of Science and Arts, December, 1872, p. 489. 



tFor more details on this sandstone, on the geological direction of the strata, on the 

 distribution of coal-beds, &c., from Black Buttes to Rock Springs, see Dr. F. V. Hay- 

 den's Report, 1870, pp. 140-142. 



