256 THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY. 



The Minnekahta Creek, or this southern fork of it, after 

 flowing north through the Cretaceous, enters the Red Beds a 

 little south of the Minnekahta Station, after which it bends to 

 the eastward and follows the strike to Hot Springs. Below this 

 point it takes a southeasterly course, and soon reenters the Cre- 

 taceous, cutting entirely through the sandstone and entering the 

 dark Fort Benton Clays a short distance below the cataract at 

 the electric light plant nearly five miles from Hot Springs at 

 Evans Siding. Evans Quarry is just above this point on the left 

 bank. At the last named place Professor Jenney had formerly 

 obtained dicotyledonous leaves, and it was his impression that 

 these might have come from near the horizon of the cycad bed. 

 This region presents an admirable opportunity for measuring a 

 section of the Cretaceous, which it was very desirable to do for 

 comparison with the one last given. 



The distance at the bottom of the valley from the Jurassic 

 contact to the Fort Benton is about three miles, and the dip, as 

 the section shows, is over lOO feet to the mile. The quarry is 

 about one-half mile from the point where the sandstones pass 

 under the Fort Benton shales. It has a thickness in workable 

 stone of about 60 feet, and is immediately capped by 40 or 50 

 feet of softer material. It dips very rapidly to the southeast so 

 as to come down to the stream at the electric light plant, and 

 constitute the rock over which the cataract flows and through 

 which the water has here worn deep longitudinal grooves. Imme- 

 diately over these rocks and resting upon them there is a bed 

 some six or eight feet in thickness of dark clay and argillaceous 

 shales with carbonaceous matter and some impure coal. In this 

 bed was found a great abundance of more or less comminuted 

 vegetable matter, with short fragments of culms or reed-like 

 plants not determinable. There also occurred in certain of 

 the shales a few tolerably well preserved dicotyledonous 

 leaves, some of which are determinable. They were at least 

 sufficient to indicate with practical certainty that this stratum 

 belongs to the Dakota Group of Meek and Hayden (No. i). 

 A small collection was made at this point, viz., at the cataract 



