196 C. D. WALCOTT — INTRA-FORMATIONAL CONGLOMERATES. 



of such variety that the conclusions based upon them are considered to 

 be nearly as reliable as those where fossils are present. 



In Tennessee these conglomerates occur in the lower portion of the 

 Ocoee terrane of Safford. Mr Arthur Keith named the basal slate the 

 Wilhite. This slate rarely exceeds 700 feet in thickness, and it is capped 

 by the silicious Citico conglomerate (Keith). Within the Wilhite slate, 

 especially in the upper 200 feet, and along its strike for over 100 miles, 

 numerous beds of limestone occur. Usually a limestone conglomerate 

 is found in the same section, generally above the bedded limestone. 

 These limestone conglomerates have been cited as proof that the Wilhite 

 slates were of later age than the Ordovician limestones, which were 

 assumed as having furnished the pebbles and bowlders of the limestone 

 conglomerates and hence that the Ocoee terrane instead of being an older 

 formation than the great limestone series of Tennessee was of later date, 

 and hence of post-Ordovician age. 



In company with Mr Keith I visited numerous localities of the Wil- 

 hite slate in Cocke, Sevier and Blount counties. At a locality three 

 miles south, 65° east of East Fork, Sevier county, a limestone conglom- 

 erate occurs by the roadside and also on the north side of the road on 

 Stephen Huff's farm. The bedded limestones vary in texture and color 

 and in the presence or absence of more or less arenaceous material, but 

 the weathered surfaces of many of the beds are very characteristic. At 

 the locality by the roadside there is little, if any, of the bedded lime- 

 stone exposed, the conglomerate resting on the calcareous shale or slate 

 containing compressed lentiles of impure bituminous limestone. The 

 conglomerate is formed of brecciated and rounded pebbles and bowlders 

 of limestone and, more rarely, of a fine grained sandstone. The lime- 

 stone bowlders vary in lithologic characters from pure white limestone 

 to sandy and silicious and their various combinations. In color) they 

 are blue, gray, black, purple, white, pinkish, dove, etcetera. About two 

 miles to the north of this locality, on Wilhite creek, there occurs a some- 

 what similar conglomerate, in which the limestone bowlders reach a 

 diameter of from three to four feet. A peculiarity of the conglomerate 

 at these places is the presence of large bowlders in the slate above the 

 main body of the conglomerate. 



At a locality two miles east of Jones cove, Sevier county, an interesting 

 phase of the conglomerate is the presence of bowlders of a dark, sandy 

 limestone embedded in the mass of the bedded limestone that occurs 

 below and also above the conglomerate. The matrix of the conglom- 

 erate is frequently largely made up of a sandy limestone of the same 

 lithologic aspect as the bedded limestones out of which were made the 

 bowlders of the conglomerate. The limestone conglomerate was also 



