A CHAT WITH PROF. COPE — CONTINUED. 361 



remains of the fish Apsopelix sauriformis (Cope). 

 That the eastern boundary of this bed is very sinu- 

 ous is rendered probable by its occurrence at Brook- 

 ville, eighteen miles to the eastward of Fort Harker, 

 on the railroad. In sinking a well at this point, the 

 same soft, bluish clay rock was traversed, and at a 

 depth of about thirty feet a skeleton of a saurian of 

 the crocodilian order was encountered, the Hyposaurus 

 vebbii (Cope). 



The boundary line, or first appearance of the beds 

 of the Niobrara division, has not been pointed out, 

 but at Fort Hays, seventy miles west of Fort Harker, 

 its rocks form the bluffs and outcroj^s every-where. 

 From Fort Hays to Fort Wallace, near the western 

 boundary of the state, one hundred and thirty-four 

 miles beyond, the strata present a tolerably uniform 

 appearance. They consist of two portions ; a lower, 

 of dark-bluish calcareo-argillaceous character, often 

 thin-bedded ; and a superior, of yellow and whitish 

 chalk, much more heavily bedded. Near Fort Hays 

 the best section may be seen, at a point eighteen miles 

 north, on the Saline river. Here the bluffs rise to a 

 height of two hundred feet, the yellow strata consti- 

 tuting the upper half. No fossils were observed in 

 the blue bed, but some moderate-sized Ostrece, fre- 

 quently broken, were not rare in the yellow. Half 

 way between this point and the Fort, my friend, N. 

 Daniels, of Hays, guided me to a denuded tract, cov- 

 ered with the remains of huge oysters, some of which 

 measured twenty-seven inches in diameter. They 

 exhibited concentric obtuse ridges on the interior 

 side, and a large basin-shaped area behind the hinge. 



