Williams] MEEK AND HAYDEN, NEWBERRY. 199 



St. Louis, in 18G0, correlates the lower Cretaceous beds ("Arenaceous 

 and lied Eiver groups") with No. 1, of the Nebraska section ; in it 

 are recorded characteristic Cretaceous fossils. 



Messrs. Meek and Hayden 1 having examined the fossils and other 

 geological specimens collected by Lieut. G. K. Warren, topographical 

 engineer in and near the Black Hills, Nebraska, gave the succession of 

 geological formations indicated by them. 



The main body of the Hills is granite, and superimposed upon it is— 



(1) A group of highly metamorphosed sedimentary formations. 



(2) A sandstone equivalent to the Potsdam sandstone of the New York series. 



(3) Limestones containing fossils which are a mingling of Coal Measure and Lower 

 Carboniferous types. 



(4) Two red beds containing specimens of fossils closely allied to Coal Measure 

 forms. These red beds may be of Permian age, though the fossils point rather to the 

 Upper Carboniferous series. It is not improbable that the upper bed may be Triassic 

 or even Jurassic. 



(5) Strata containing fossils of Jurassic type. The strata are argillaceous shales 

 and various colored sandstones. 



(6) Beds regarded as belonging to the older Cretaceous, though a large portion of 

 them may be Jurassic. 



Above all these formations are in regular succession, No. 2, No. 3, 

 No. 4, No. 5, of the Cretaceous series of Nebraska^ 



Mr. Swallow examined a collection of fossils from the Upper Coal 

 Measures of Kansas Territory, made by Mr. Hawu, compared them 

 with Permian fossils from Kussia of Verneuil, and decided that the 

 Kansas fossils are also Permian. 



On his journey to New Mexico, J. S. Newberry 3 found Permian fossils 

 in Kansas, and the beds described by Meek and flayden as between 

 the Lower Cretaceous and the Permian, which they state may be either 

 Jurassic or Triassic. He also saw the same red or brown sandstone 

 from which these gentlemen collected the fossil leaves which Heer and 

 Marcou pronounced to be Miocene, but which Newberry says are the 

 same which mark the base of the Cretaceous in New Jersey, Nebraska, 

 and Kansas. And farther southwest he found this same sandstone 

 overlaid by the same Cretaceous seen by Meek and «Haydeu surmount- 

 ing it in Nebraska, these Cretaceous beds containing well known and 

 admitted Cretaceous fossils, and also the very Gryplicca relied upon by 

 Marcou to prove the existence of the Jurassic, proving, if Marcou and 

 Heer are right, that the Miocene is older than the Cretaceous and 

 Jurassic. 



In New Mexico Mr. Newberry discovered facts sustaining the pres- 

 ence of the Trias there, as in the red gypsum-bearing marls containing 

 cycadaceous plants, similar to those of the Keuper (Upper Trias) of 

 Europe. 



In the letter 4 from B. F. Shumard, read by Joseph Leidy, to the 



1 Meek, F. B., and F. V. Hayden : Fossils of Nebraska. [Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 25, 1858, pp. 439-441. 



2 Swallow, G. C. : On Permian strata in Kansas. Am. Jour. Sci., 2d series, vol. 25, 1858, p. 305. 

 3 Newberry, J. S. : Explorations in New Mexico. Am. Jour. Sci., vol. 28, 1859, pp. 298-299. 



« On Permian rocks of New Mexico. By B. F. Shumard, Phil. Acad. Sci., Proc, vol. 10, 1859, p. 14. 



