ORIGIN AND DEFINITION OF THE TERM “LARAMIE” 547 
hence the statement by King that the Laramie beds are those which 
conformably overlie the Fox Hills, while correct according to the 
existing knowledge, is not correct at the type locality, and therefore 
without determinative value in this connection. It but illustrates 
anew the absolute necessity of a type locality to afford means of finally 
and conclusively correcting any inaccurate statements or conclusions 
of the author or authors of a geologic name. Strictly considered, the 
term ‘‘Laramie” therefore can appropriately be applied only to the 
beds above the great unconformity and—fixing an upper limit in part 
from our present knowledge—below the Fort Union.' 
5. The attempt to redefine the term “‘ Laramie” from, the expos- 
ures in the Denver region, some 200 miles from the type locality, is 
therefore not defensible. It results in the scientific anomaly of 
applying the term ‘“‘Laramie”’ to a series of beds entirely distinct 
from those at the type locality on which the name was based. It 
completely robs the name of all geographical significance, and gives 
to it even less meaning or appropriateness than a mere lithologic 
term such as “ Lignitic.” 
6. While strictly speaking the name ‘‘ Laramie” can be appro- 
priately applied only to the upper beds (Upper Laramie), and it cannot 
with any propriety be restricted to the lower beds (Lower Laramie), 
the consideration that it was proposed for the beds between the 
Wasatch and the marine Montana Cretaceous, and has been most 
commonly and extensively used in this broad sense, has led to the 
suggestion that the retention of the name in this original sense will 
cause the least confusion, and that it therefore might be expedient to 
define the Laramie as that series of beds occurring between the 
marine Montana Cretaceous and the Fort Union. 
t At Evanston there are several reasons for believing that the base of the Wasatch 
of Hayden contains representatives of the Fort Union, Puerco, and Terrejon. - Between 
the Laramie and the Coryphodon-bearing Wasatch are some 4,000 feet of strata sepa- 
rated from the Corvphodon-bearing beds by an unconformity. At Black Buttes beds 
now known to be Fort Union (Knowlton, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 
Vol. VIII [1896], p. 145) were referred by King to the Vermilion Creek. It therefore 
seems not only logical, but in accord with the original usage, to define the upper limit 
of the Laramie as the Fort Union. The Washakie beds which Hayden regarded as, 
in this region, limiting the Lignitic above (Third Annual Report, U. S. Geological 
Survey, Colorado, New Mexico, 1869, p. 90) and which were included by King in 
his Vermilion Creek, are the beds from which Knowlton reports distinctive Fort Union 
plants at Black Buttes. 
