ORIGIN AND DEFINITION OF THE TERM “LARAMIE” 541 
the Lignitic group and the more modern Tertiaries, as the Washakie, Green River, 
and other fresh-water groups, there is at this time a true nonconformity. . . . . If 
we could look beneath the horizontal strata of the Washakie group between 
Separation and Bitter Creek, or under the Bridger and Green River groups along 
the immediate line of the railroad, we might find localities where the sequence of 
the beds is not interrupted, and yet, in the immediate vicinity of the mountain- 
ranges, as the Uintah, for example, the modern fresh-water Tertiaries rest uncon- 
formably on the older rocks.? 
This clearly shows that in this region Hayden regarded the Lig- 
nitic as limited below by the Fox Hills and above by the Washakie 
(Wasatch or Vermilion Creek) group. That he had already begun 
to suspect the existence of a break at the base of the Laramie is sug- 
gested by the following statement: 
It is evident that in many localities, and possibly throughout eastern Colorado, 
a considerable portion of the Upper Fox Hills group is wanting. Sometimes the 
Lignitic group is deposited on No. 4 or No. 3 Cretaceous. Therefore there is 
undoubtedly a conformable interrupted sequence; in other words, while the Lig- 
nitic group appears to conform to the underlying beds, there really are wanting 
hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of feet of strata which at some other locality 
in the West may exist.? 
HAGUE’S STUDIES 
Another line of evidence is perhaps needed to give the complete 
historical background necessary to reach a correct conclusion in this 
question of the origin and definition of the term ‘‘ Laramie.” There 
are a number of reasons for believing that not only was the term 
“Laramie,” as has been shown, the most natural name for Hayden 
to suggest when asked by King for an appropriate term,’ but it was 
also the name which was independently suggested to King by Hague.4 
t Bulletin, U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Vol. I, 
No. 5 (January 8, 1876), p. 410. 
2 [bid., p. 404. 
3 Dr. A. C. Peale has informed me that he has in his possession a letter from King 
to Hayden, bearing a date later than November 15, 1875, requesting that he, Hayden, 
propose a name for the Lignitic. 
4 Verbal statement by Mr. Hague to the author, corroborated by the use of the 
term ‘“‘Laramie”’ on a map issued by the King Survey, November 15, 1875. See 
American Journal of Science, Third Series, Vol. XI (1876), p. 161; Bulletin, U. S. 
Geological Survey of the Territories, Vol. III (1877), p. 182; Bulletin No. 82, U.S. 
Geological Survey (1891), p. 147. 
