810 E. O. ULRICH CORRELATIONS OF CHESTER FORMATIONS 



lower part of the Bethel ("Cypress") sandstone, is frankly admitted in 

 a more recent publication on the subject. 4 I admitted also various errors 

 in correlating the Kentucky formations with beds found in the Missis- 

 sippi Valley. Though most of these errors of fact and judgment did not 

 originate with me, but were inherited from predecessors in the field, I 

 nevertheless accepted full responsibility for them. But, after all the 

 necessary nomenclatural substitutions had been made and new forma- 

 tional names had been given to the beds which I had designated by num- 

 bers merely, the sequence of formations and beds remained in practically 

 all essential respects precisely as I gave it in 1905. 



However great the confidence of others in my judgment may be, their 

 confidence must be shaken when the data on which my conclusions were 

 grounded are denied or questioned. Therefore it is not only a right, but 

 also an obligation, that I owe to the science to defend the assailed facts 

 and inferred correlations and to support them with such new observations 

 as field and laboratory investigations in the meantime have granted. 



PUBLICATIONS ON CHESTER FORMATIONS IN PAST DECADE 



Since 1905 various publications devoted in large or small part to Ches- 

 ter problems have appeared — three prior to January, 1922, and one since 

 by Prof. Stuart Weller, 5 one by Mr. Charles Butts, 6 and one by myself. 7 

 In the last, as already mentioned, all the errors of observations and inter- 

 pretation that subsequent investigations had revealed in my 1905 publi- 

 cation were conceded and corrected. In the meantime, also, Mr. Butts 

 and I had come into close agreement on all but two points, namely : ( 1 ) 

 he preferred to propose a new name — Bethel sandstone — for the forma- 

 tion that I had described and mapped in 1905 under the name Cypress 

 sandstone, whereas I advocated the use of Keyes' name, Aux Vases sand- 

 stone, instead; (2) he believed, and therein agreed with Weller, that the 

 upper beds of the Sainte Genevieve limestone pinch out, in going east- 

 wardly and southwardly from Caldwell County, until only the Fredonia 

 member of the formation remained, whereas I held that the upper beds 

 merely lost their shaly character and passed laterally into thinner, mainly 

 oolitic limestones. Mr. Butts now accepts the latter interpretation. 



One of the two papers published by Weller in 1920 appeared in the 



4 Mississippian formations of western Kentucky. Kentucky Geol. Survey, 1917. 



5 Trans. Illinois Acad. Sci., vol. 6, 1913, pp. 118-129; Illinois State Geol. Survey 

 Monograph 1, 1914, pp. 23-29: Illinois State Geol. Survey, Geology of Hardin County, 

 1920. Geology of the Golconda quadrangle. Kentucky Geol. Survey, 1922. 



6 Kentucky Geol. Survey, Mississippian series in western Kentuckv, pt. 1, 1917, pp. 

 46-119. 



7 Kentucky Geol. Survey, Mississippian series in western Kentucky, pt. 2, 1917, pp. 

 1-272. 



