COAL-BEARING SERIES OF THE LARAMIE PLAINS. 137 



abundant form in Converse county. Forms, of which at least one is open 

 to doubt, have been found at Point of Rocks in what has been supposed 

 to be Laramie strata. One species is nearly confined to the Fort Union, 

 showing that this flora had its beginning in the strata under considera- 

 tion. Two of the above species have been found in the Laramie at 

 Golden, Colorado, and one in the Raton mountains, New Mexico. 



The affinity of the undescribed forms is also quite clearly with the 

 true Laramie flora, and thus, as nearly as can be made out, the plants 

 confirm the Laramie age of the Ceratops beds. 



COAL-BEARING SERIES OF THE LARAMIE PLAINS. 



Coal beds have long been known to exist in the neighborhood of Rock 

 creek and Cooper creek near the old stage road, 25 to 30 miles northwest 

 of Laramie City, and they have been mined at intervals for local use for 

 30 years or more.* It has often been assumed that this coal is of Laramie 

 age, though the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel Survey recognized its 

 stratigraphic position beneath marine Cretaceous beds and referred it to 

 the Fox hills. The importance and interesting nature of this series was 

 called to our attention by Professor W. C. Knight, of the University of 

 Wyoming, who generously gave us a week of his time and guided us to 

 many important localities. One of the sections in which the relations of 

 the different horizons are best exhibited is near Harpers Station, on the 

 Union Pacific railroad, and within one or two miles of the original posi- 

 tion of Miser Station, which is mentioned in some of the earlier geolog- 

 ical reports. One mile northwest of Harpers there is an exposure of 

 w T hite sandstone with clays and coal seams, showing a total thickness of 

 about 40 feet and dipping from 9 to 10 degrees south. Fossil plants are 

 abundant near the base of the exposure and common in a band 20 to 25 

 feet higher, but the number of species represented is not large. They 

 are interesting, however, from the fact that they are of certainly lower 

 Laramie types or even older. The following is the list : 



Sequoia reiclienbachi (?), Gein. Anemia subcretaceu, (Sap.) Gard. and Ett. 



Brachyphyllum, n. sp. Cinnamomum affine, Lx. 



The beds immediately overlying the coal-bearing series are usually 

 covered, consisting apparently of soft clay shales. A fortunate exposure 

 about 200 yards south of the plant-bearing locality, and consequently 

 little more than 100 feet higher, shows a few feet of such clays with 



*Hayden : Second Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Survey Terr., in reprint ist, 2d, and 3d Reports, pp. 

 89, 90. Hague : U. S Geol. E)xpl. 40th Parallel, vol. ii, pp. 86, 87. King : Ibidem, vol. i, p. 321. 



