544 AUG. VEARCE: 
Taking up then the consideration of Lesquereux’s conclusions, 
he decides that the age of the deposits 
rests either on the fossil plants which they contain or upon their stratigraphic 
position, and where such testimony disagrees it would seem that the latter must 
necessarily receive the greater weight..... Professor Lesquereux, notwith- 
standing he feels so positive as to the Miocene age of the Carbon beds, does not 
hesitate to place them below the Green River series, giving them a position in 
relation to the latter horizon which few geologists will be disposed to dispute, 
and which the geological maps and sections accompanying this report conclusively 
prove. In the second chapter of this volume it will be shown that the Green River 
beds are undoubtedly of Eocene age, that they are . . . . underlaid by a heavy 
thickness of the Vermilion Creek series, also Eocene, and that the latter overlies 
unconformably beds occupying the same horizon as the Carbon formation, which 
we regard as of upper Cretaceous age. 
CROSS’S REDEFINITION 
Hayden and King clearly adopted the word “Laramie” for the 
beds between the marine Montana Cretaceous and Wasatch or Ver- 
milion Creek Eocene. The next important advance in the knowledge 
of this subject resulted from the work of Cross and Eldridge in the 
Denver region. They found here that the Laramie as mapped by 
the Hayden Survey was broken by an immense unconformity, suc- 
ceeded by a second one of minor importance. ° 
Cross was thus confronted with the difficulty of determining 
whether the beds above the unconformity, or those below the uncon- 
formity, should most appropriately be called Laramie. After care- 
fully considering the writings of King, and finding his statement that 
the Laramie included ‘that series of beds which conformably overlie 
the Fox Hills,”’ Cross quite naturally decided that the term “ Laramie” 
should be applied only to the beds below the unconformity. The. 
fact that detailed work has now shown (r1) that all the Laramie beds 
known on the Laramie Plains at the time of the adoption of the word 
“Taramie” are ‘Upper. Laramie,’ (2) that, although they were 
believed to be entirely conformable with the underlying beds by all 
who had examined them, they are in fact separated from them by a 
great break, and hence that the statement of conformability in King’s 
definition is without determinative value in this connection, because 
the base of the Upper Laramie, and included in the Fox Hills beds of Lower Laramie 
age which are exposed at this point, thus absolutely and conclusively limiting the Lara- 
mie at this point to the Upper Laramie. 
