RED BEDS BETWEEN WICHITA FALLS AND LAS VEGAS 257 



resulted in the finding of a single broken tooth in a conglomerate 

 near the middle of the series; as this is a Phytosaur or Dinosaur 

 tooth it shows that the upper half of the beds, at least, is Triassic. 

 Whether any of the beds below this belong in the Permian it is still 

 impossible to say, but when we consider the great thickness of the 

 Triassic not very many miles to the east it is not likely that Red 

 Beds of Permian age have any considerable thickness, if they are 

 present at all. Moreover, it can be shown that the Permian beds 



Fig. 10. — Wall of the mesa near the head of the Conchas Canyon. The capping 

 layer is Dakota beneath which lie the beds considered by Lee as Morrison. The 

 lower heavy layer is the uppermost layer of the Triassic. 



north of Santa Fe were laid down in an area of deposition com- 

 pletely separated from that over Texas and Oklahoma. I am 

 inclined to suggest that the sea or area of deposition which covered 

 northern and western Texas and Oklahoma had its western border 

 somewhere east of the present Rockies and that the Red Beds on 

 the eastern flanks of the mountains in northern New Mexico and 

 southern Colorado, at least, have no Permian members. 



It will be seen from the foregoing that the evidence from verte- 

 brate fossils bears out in a pretty conclusive manner the conclusions 

 drawn from stratigraphic evidence. The Clear Fork beds, with 

 their vertebrate fauna, disappear beneath a distinct set of beds, 

 the Double Mountain, at about the line of Haskell. Just how 

 much farther west they go it is impossible to say, but it is not far. 

 In western Texas and eastern New Mexico, along the line followed^ 



