668 T. W. STANTON 



and New Mexico is the equivalent, in part at least, of the Kiowa 

 and Mentor beds of Kansas which are very intimately connected 

 with the Dakota, as Gould 1 has pointed out. This connection is 

 shown by the flora as well as by apparent stratigraphic continuity. 

 The Cheyenne sandstone which underlies the Kiowa in southern 

 Kansas contains a flora not yet fully studied which is of the same 

 type as the Dakota flora and includes some identical species. 



In the neighborhood of Marquette, central Kansas, there are 

 sandstone bands with Dakota species of plants intercalated in the 

 marine beds with characteristic Comanche fauna. The paleobotanic 

 evidence therefore tends to place the Fuson formation considerably 

 lower in the general geologic column than the shaly Comanche beds 

 beneath the Dakota in Colorado and Kansas. 



Age o] the Morrison. — The question whether the Morrison forma- 

 tion is Jurassic or Cretaceous is still to be answered, and if a satis- 

 factory answer is ever received it will doubtless be from vertebrate 

 paleontology, aided by careful stratigraphic methods. If the Mor- 

 rison is Cretaceous, the proof that it is so will not be by tracing it 

 directly into marine Cretaceous strata. It has been shown that the 

 beds supposed to be thus connected with it overlie it for more than 

 ioo miles across the strike. But these overlying beds are by no 

 means the earliest Cretaceous, and there is still room for the Morrison 

 within that system if the fauna requires such a reference. On the 

 other hand, there is ample space for it in the Jurassic 2 not otherwise 

 represented in the region by sediments, and before the final decision 

 is made the character of the flora in the Fuson formation of the 

 Black Hills and in the Kootanie of Montana should be given due 

 weight, and these formations should be closely studied and searched 

 for other evidence. 



In this connection I may quote from the late Clarence King who, 

 in speaking of paleontologists as "these scientific autocrats," says: 3 



1 American Journal of Science, 4th series, Vol. V (1898), pp. 169-75; American 

 Geologist, Vol. XXV, pp. 10-40. 



2 The marine Jurassic Sundance formation, characterized by Cardioceras cordi- 

 forme M & H, etc., on which the Morrison rests in the northern area, does not represent 

 the latest Jurassic according to European standards 



3 Report Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, 1875, p. 919. 



