JPLAXT BEDS XEAR XICHOLS STATION 375 



one of decided deformation and silicification as well as of igneous in- 

 trusion. 



Plant Beds kear Nichols Station, Oregox 



composition and attitude 



On Cow creek, by the Southern Pacific railroad, near the whistling 

 post, half a mile north of Nichols station, as shown on the map (figure 2), 

 several small but important oiitcrops of the plant beds occur. They are 

 completely surrounded by the Eocene and have been laid bare by its 

 erosion. 



The plant beds are fine, dark, shaly sandstone or sandy shale, much 

 squeezed and checked, but without alteration or quartz veining. There 

 are some calcareous nodules and spheroidal weathering is frequent. Beds 

 of fine conglomerate, 2 to 5 feet thick, are occasionally interbedded with 

 the sandy shale, and the entire mass, about 200 feet in thickness, dips to 

 the southeast at an angle of about 60 degrees. The easternmost locality 

 lies on the north slope of a ridge, iinder a gap several hundred feet above 

 Cow creek, and the beds are not well exposed, but they are of much im- 

 portance on account of their fossils. 



From the plant beds of the Nichols region 45 forms are described, 

 many of which occur in the vicinity of Buck mountain. These two are 

 the t}"pe localities of Ward and Fontaine and have thus far afforded a 

 flora of 77 forms, referred to as the "Jurassic flora of Douglas count}', 

 Oregon." 



RELATIOy TO ADJACENT ROCKS 



The Eocene is chiefly coarse sandstone or conglomerate and has a 

 smaller dip than the plant beds with which it is seen in unconformable 

 contact at several points along the stream. The Eocene in the imme- 

 diate vicinity is not fossiliferous, bi;t fossils occur half a mile to the 

 north and in the neighboring table mountain. 



The relation of the plant beds to the "Myrtle formation" on the one 

 hand and the Dothan on the other is not a matter of direct observation, 

 for their contacts in the neighborhood of Nichols are concealed. 



Mr Will Q. Brown, the discoverer of the Nichols area of the Mesozoic 

 plant beds, reports finding in the ridge area east of Cow creek a fragment 

 containing a t}^ical specimen of Aucella pioclii, with others containing 

 Mesozoic plants. Plant beds cover the whole of this small area, and 

 though it may not be stated positively that the Aucella came from the 

 plant beds, yet, since all the surrounding rocks are Eocene, the plant beds 

 seem to be the most probable source of the Aucella, and this occurrence, 



