534 A. C. PEALE 
which he believes to be somewhat extended in the upper Missouri 
River region at the base of the Fort Union group, he suggests the 
probability of its Cretaceous age, but says: “Yet this can scarcely 
be properly regarded as an established fact,’’* and then refers to 
the mingling of the Eocene and Cretaceous types of vertebrates 
in the beds. 
During the summer of 1882 Dr. C. A. White? made a special 
study of the geology about Fort Union and the region extending 
thence up the Yellowstone. He ascertained as the result of this 
study that, with the exception of one or two small exposures of the 
Fox Hills lying immediately below the Fort Union [which he referred 
to the Laramie], the latter occupied the whole region and from the 
beds so referred the collected fossil plants, fresh-water invertebrates, 
and dinosaurian remains, and states that the latter are found toward 
the base [that is, in the beds since referred to the Lance formation]. 
The following year Dr. White? spent part of the months of 
July and August in the area between Fort Benton and Judith River 
and the Highwood Mountains studying the relations of the Laramie 
[Lance ?] group to the underlying formations. He was joined here 
by Professor L. F. Ward‘ and on August 22 they began the descent 
of the Missouri from Fort Benton to Bismarck, which they reached 
September 21. Ward says that the most notable fossil plant 
locality discovered was about 7 miles below Coal Banks on the 
right bank of the Missouri River, occupying a stratigraphic posi- 
tion near the base of the Fox Hills, probably in the Fort Pierre 
group. These were of special interest as being the only Cretaceous 
fossil plants found up to that time in the United States above the 
Dakota group. White and Ward as the result of this trip saw no 
reason to differ with the latest conclusions of Meek and Hayden, 
or those of Cope, but, as Dr. Stanton’ says, their stratigraphic 
observations were never fully published. Later, White® in dis- 
. 
1 [bid., p. I-li. 
2Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., xxvii (1883), 121. 
3 Fifth Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. Surv. for 1883-84-85, P. 50. 
4 [bid., p. 60. 
5 Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 257, p. 27. 
6 [bid., No. 82, pp. 174-77 
