210 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 75 



Mount Wilson quartzite by a Middle Devonian limestone. With our 

 present information I think the Wonah quartzite represents the sands 

 of the transgressing Silurian sea and the Mount Wilson quartzite the 

 sands of the transgressing Devonian sea, and that the Wonah should be 

 referred to the Silurian, and the Mount Wilson to the Devonian. 



This problem must be worked out in detail by geologists of the 

 future, who should study the Paleozoic formations of the Cordilleran 

 area from Nevada through to the Yukon River in Alaska, in hopes that 

 somewhere an unbroken succession of deposits may be found contain- 

 ing the faunas that existed from early Cambrian time through to 

 Middle Devonian time. 



Ghost River Formation. Walcott, 1921 ^ 



(Jn the Rocky Mountain front, west of Calgary, a non-fossiliferous 

 formation occurs beneath the Devonian, to which the name Ghost 

 River was applied in the field notes of 1920. This formation is 

 formed of thin-bedded and shaly, buff-colored magnesian limestones, 

 285 feet (86.9 m.) in thickness, which are superjacent to the Middle 

 Cambrian limestones of the Ptarmigan formation, and subjacent to 

 massive Middle Devonian limestones (Intermediate limestone of Mc- 

 Connell, Messines formation of Walcott," or Banfif limestone and dolo- 

 mite of Kindle).' The lower layers are conformable with the beds 

 beneath for a long distance and the upper beds appear to be conform- 

 able with the Devonian above, but at this upper contact there is an 

 abrupt change to the dark massive-bedded, fossiliferous Middle 

 Devonian limestone. No fossils of any kind were seen in or on the 

 Ghost River magnesian limestones and shales. 



The Ghost River formation was traced from the south fork of 

 Ghost River north to the Panther River, but it may extend farther 

 along the Rocky Mountain front. 



In the Ranger Brook section (H on map), 24 miles (38.6 km.) west- 

 southwest of the Ghost River section (I on map), there is a band of 

 black arenaceo-argillaceous shale about 6 feet (1.8 m.) in thickness 

 beneath the dark massive-bedded Devonian (Messines^ limestones 

 and above the light gray, more or less cherty Sarbach limestones. 

 This band of shale occupies the stratigraphic position of the mag- 

 nesian limestones of the Ghost River formation, and appears to be 



* Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. '/2, No. 6, 1921, p. 5; also Vol. 67, No. 8, 

 1923, p. 463. 

 ^Smithsonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 75, No. i, 1924, pp. 50, 51. 

 ' Pan-Amer. Geologist, Vol. 42, No. 2, 1924, pp. 120, 121. 



