153 Midway Stage 39 



Near the forks of the road ^ mile south of Ripley, near a 

 spring the following section was obtained: — 



a. Red sand. 



b. Limestone, - - - - - 5 feet. 



c. Green sand, pebbles, sharks' teeth, - - i foot. 



d. Blue and yellow clay with fine fragments of T. 



mortoni {yoxxwg) , C. pla7iicosta, etc., - 2 feet. 



e. Blue clay with fragments of Scaphites, - - i foot. 



No distinct break was here seen. 



^/a<^a;;?«.— In the vicinity of Prairie Bluff the uppermost bed 

 of undisturbed Cretaceous material is generally a bed of hard 

 bluish micaceous clay averaging perhaps 7 feet thick. The upper 

 surface of this bed is wonderfully irregular and has plainly been 

 subjected to strong eroding currents. Above, comes a layer of 

 coarse granular sandstone with pebbles, sharks' teeth, fragments 

 of Baculites, Exogyrcs, etc. This bed grades upwards (8-12 feet) 

 into a bluish clay limestone with Cucullcea, Ostrea pulaskensis, 

 Enclimatoceras and several other small stunted Eocene species. 

 These various beds may be seen at the best advantage on Shell 

 creek i}^ miles S. W. of Prairie Bluff (see p. 28), or in the fields 

 to the right of the road as one passes from the Bluff northward 

 from ^ to 2 miles. Immediately at the Bluff the contact line is 

 a few feet below the level of the cotton storage shed. 



Since in Smith and Johnson's sections of this bluff they put the 

 Cretaceous-Eocene line far up in the Eocene, the fact that no 

 nonconformity was observed and recorded is readily explainable. 

 In the same way the lack of nonconformity in the " Pine Barren" 

 section has already been accounted for (see p. 33). 



By going northward from Snow Hill along the R. R. track one 

 can easily determine the Cretaceous-Eocene contact line with a 

 fair degree of accuracy, say within five feet, but at the time of 

 our visit to that vicinity the exact line and hence the question of 

 nonconformability could not be satisfactorily determined. By 

 going out the highway from Snow Hill, say about 35^ miles, 

 towards Carlowville the contact line is very evident (see pi. II). 

 The lithological as well as the faunal break is complete. The 

 amount of rolled and polished stones and fragments of Cretaceous 

 shells to be found along this line is sufficient evidence of a most 

 complete stratigraphic break. 



Georgia. — Here too the lithological and paleontological break is 

 complete. The exposures were not sufficiently extensive along 

 the contact line to enable us to prove discordance of stratification 

 though we doubt not that the same exists. 



With only the above facts in mind we are inclined to think that 



