THE OLDER MESOZOIC OF ARIZONA. 17 



Very little seems to be known of the more detailed nature of these 

 deposits. They are usually spoken of as a single great group of beds, and 

 I am not aware of any serious attempt to subdivide them or arrange them 

 into anything like successive formations. It was my chief object during 

 my stay in that country to subject these deposits to a searching analytical 

 study and to work out if possible their true succession. I began this 

 study, as already shown, by a reconnaissance of the Little Colorado 

 Valley. After making camp at Tanners Crossing, which is only 12 miles 

 above the point where the Little Colorado enters the limestone canyon 

 at the foot of Coconino Point, I set about mastering the details of the 

 stratigraphy of that general region. Later on, and in the light of 

 information thus obtained, I studied the various remnants of the Mesozoic 

 that are scattered over the Colorado Plateau, and especially Red Butte, 

 which is the most conspicuous and best known of these remnants. 

 Finally, as a concluding task, I returned to the upper portion of the 

 valley of the Little Colorado and made a study of the group there 

 similar to that which I had made below. 



I shall be obhged to omit a great amount of important data, including 

 many sections recorded in my notebook, and shall give only the most 

 general and essential results and reproduce the general sections that most 

 clearly illustrate the phenomena. 



I think that I have succeeded in dividing the group into three 

 entirely distinct formations. One of these, the thickest of them and the 

 one which is best known, has already been named by Major Powell the 

 Shinarump." This, however, occupies the central portion of the beds in 

 their geological sequence. The other two divisions are, so far as I am 

 aware, unnamed. The lower beds I therefore designate the Moencopie 

 beds, from having first found them in their full development at the 

 mouth of the Moencopie Wash. To the other,, or highest formation of 

 the group, I have thought it appropriate to give the name Painted 

 Desert beds.'' 



"Geology of the Uinta Mountains, etc., 1876, pp. 68-69. See Twentieth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Survey, 

 Pt. II, 1900, p. 318, 



''The name "Painted Desert" occurs, apparently for the first time, in the contents to Chapter IX of 

 Part I of Lieutenant Ives's Report upon the Colorado River of the West, pp, 15 and 113, but is not used in 

 the description of the desert on pp. 116-117. It is used by Doctor Newberry in Part III, on pp, 76-83, and to 

 it he devotes a section. These early uses of the term show that it refers to an area lying opposite to the region 

 between Wolfs Crossing and Winslow, but Doctor Newberry says (p. 76) "that the peculiar physical aspect and 

 MON XI.VIII — 05 2 



