131 Midway Stage 7 



PART I. GBOI^OGY. 



Brief Historicai. Sketch of the Study of the Midway 



Stage. 

 Period of 1834-1859. 



Featherstonhattgh.—So far as we are aware, the first account of 

 beds belonging to the Midway stage was given by G. W. 

 Featherstonhaugh in 1835.* He says that at Little Rock, Ar- 

 kansas, he "found a calcareous deposit containing marine fossil 

 shells t belonging to the Tertiary beds. Three miles west of 

 Little Rock, this deposit reappears in considerable quantities, 

 and is quarried for the purpose of making lime. 



WmchelL—Th& Midway beds about Allenton, Ala., and "eight 

 and a half miles to the north" of that place were studied in 

 1853 by Prof. A. Winchell and published three years later, t 

 He placed them in his " BufE Sand" group and correctly re- 

 ferred them to the Eocene. The fossils he collected were placed 

 in the hands of Prof. Tuomey for description; but unfortunately 

 for science Prof. Tuomey soon died and the Tuscaloosa cabinets 

 were destroyed by fire during the Civil war. Prof. Winchell 

 did not realize any more than most of his successors that his 

 " Prairie Bluff Limestone" on the Alabama river was composite. 

 He regarded it all as Cretaceous. 



Harper.— Wh\\& State Geologist of Mississippi. Dr. Harper § 

 mapped the Midway area in Tippah county and very correctly 

 referred it to the Eocene, but drew extremely arbitrary bound- 

 ary lines along its southern and western sides. 



It will be noticed that in this period most observers of ter- 

 ranes belonging to what we now designate Midway, referred 



* Geological Report of an examination made in 1834 of the 

 elevated country between the Missouri and Red rivers, by G. 

 W. Featherstonhaugh, U. S. Geologist, published by order of 

 both houses of Congress, Washington; printed by Gales & Sea- 

 ton, 1835, 8vo, 97 pp. section. See p. 60. 



\''Ostrea, Turritella, Calyptrea, Cerithhim, &cr 



tProc. Amer. Ass. Adv. Sci., vol. x, 1856, pp. 89-90; Science, 

 vol. iii, 1885, p. 32. 



^ Preliminary Report on the Geology and Agriculture of the 

 State of Mississippi, by Dr. L. Harper, LL. D., Correspondent 

 of the Imperial Museum for Nat. Science of France, etc. , State 

 Geologist of Mississippi. By order of the Legislature of Missis- 

 sippi, E. Barksdale, State Printer, Jackson, 1857, 8vo, 350 pp., 

 7 pi., I map. See p. 36 and pi. 7. 



