STRATIGRAPHIC POSITION OF JUDITH RIVER FORMATION 547 
a lithological resemblance, but no fossils were found to prove this’ 
supposition. 
In these supposed Jurassic beds Douglas secured bones of 
a large dinosaur, above which he recognized several hundred 
feet of sandstones and shales, extending to the Benton, the upper 
part of which he says probably belongs to the Dakota formation. 
In the dark shales and sandstones which he refers to the Benton he 
obtained shells, all of Benton types. The Benton is succeeded 
above by grey sandstones and shales with some bands of limestone. 
He estimates these beds to have a thickness of 700 to 800 feet and 
refers them to the Niobrara, speaking also of the coal occurring 
above the middle. This coal and the beds below are probably to be 
correlated with the Eagle formation. In the upper part of the 
series not far below the top, I obtained a Sequoia Reichenbachi, 
probably the same species of Sequoia noted by Douglas as occurring 
near the same horizon in these beds. The beds so far as observed 
are nearly vertical in position, forming hog-back ridges, and the 
change to the badland beds, which are stratigraphically higher 
and nearly horizontal in position, occurs within a very short dis- 
tance, though there is little doubt as to the two being conformable. 
These fresh-water beds are those which he calls the Fish Creek beds 
and he correctly correlates them with the Belly River beds of 
Canada with which their stratigraphic position agrees perfectly. 
They are overlain, as are the Canadian Belly River beds, by a 
great thickness of Fort Pierre shales. These exposures, first dis- 
covered by Douglas, are referred to by Stanton as follows: 
Not being familiar with the Judith River beds, Mr. Douglas was unable 
to recognize the identity of the Fish Creek and Judith River outcrops. In 
their stratigraphic position, as well as in their lithologic and faunal characters, 
they are almost identical with the Judith River beds farther north and should 
be referred to that formation.? 
As noted above, the stratigraphic position of these beds is the 
same as that of the Belly River beds in Canada and not that of the 
Judith River beds of Montana. There is of course a general 
resemblance lithologically in them to the Judith River beds and 
t Economic Geology, III (1908), 83, 84. 
2 Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. No. 257, 1905, p. 59. 
