118 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



Eagle River. — The remainder of tbe section made in bluffs on Eagle 

 River near the mouth of Roche-Moutonnee Creek is as follows : 



No. 4. — Section of Permian or Pertno- Carboniferous strata on Eagle River. 



Thickness. 

 Base. Ft. In. 



1. Coarse white conglomerate 27 3 



2. Greenish-gray micaceous sandstone shales, with bands of very hard sand- 



stone - -45 11 



3. Very hard irregular-structured blue limestone, of a brownish color on 



weathered surface 10 



4. Coarse gray sandstone with interlaminated shales 145 



5. Massive sandstones, generally of a gray color, with a greenish tinge. They 



are mostly fine-grained and generally micaceous. Some of the beds are 

 pebbly, and near the bottom is a band of black shale with carbonaceous 

 material. This band is from six to eight feet in thickness. These sand- 

 stones are exposed in a bluff in the upper part of which they are conglom- 

 eritic and darker in color thau below 205 10 



6. Rather coarse gray sandstones, in thin beds, fossiliferous, and weathering of 



a rusty color 342 4 



7. Space probably filled with sandstones and shales reaching to the summit of 



the hill back from the bluffs, containing a thickness of about 500 



Total thickness about , 1,276 4 



This probably does not represent the entire thickness of the beds, as 

 I was unable to carry the section up to the base of the Red Beds, and, 

 farther down Eagle River, where the Red Beds are present, the strata 

 immediately beneath are so changed that I could not positively recog- 

 nize any of the beds of the section made farthe'r up the river. 



In bed No. 6 of the section, in 1873, I found fossils which Professor 

 Lesquereux identified as Calamites suelcovii, Brgt., Stigmaria fucoides, and 

 Calamites gigas, Brgt. 1 quote his remarks from my report of last year. 

 Of Calamites suelcovii he says: "This species is perhaps more abundant 

 in the Coal- Measures ; but it ascends to the base of the Permian, where 

 in Europe, at least, it has been found in plenty." The species was, 

 however, associated with Calamites gigas, which Professor Lesquereux 

 says "is exclusively Permian and has never as yet been found in the Car- 

 boniferous Measures. 1 ' Of Stigmaria fucoides he says "it is a universal 

 species of the Coal-Measures also ascending, rarely, however, to the base 

 of the Permian. I am inclined to consider it as Permian, merely by 

 the lithological relations to the other specimens, but it is not possible 

 to decide positively from this." 



I think it probable, therefore, that the lower layers in the section given 

 above may be of Permo-Carboniferous age, as there is but one species 

 that belongs exclusively to the Permian, while all above should proba- 

 bly be referred to the Permian. 



In contributions to the fossil flora of the western Territories, Part 1 (vol. 

 vi, Report United States Geological Survey), Professor Lesquereux says 

 (page 15) : " In the explorations of Dr. Hayden, 1873, however, Dr. A. C. 

 Peale discovered, in strata referred by him either to the Carboniferous or 

 the Permian, a number of well-preserved branches or stems of Calamites, 

 whose identification proves for the formation whence they are derived 

 the same intermixture of characters referable to both the Permian and 

 Carboniferous." "This coincidence in the data furnished by animal 

 and vegetable paleontology, (referring to some remarks given upon this 

 statement,) proves that the end of the Paleozoic times in our American 

 geology is marked from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains 

 by the Upper Carboniferous, already modified by the first traces of Per- 

 mian life." Professor Lesquereux, however, says that the Dakota 



