Part I. HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE LARAMIE PROBLEM. 



EARLY OPINIONS CONCERNING THE COAL- 

 BEARING ROCKS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN 

 REGION. 



As this report is the first of what is proposed 

 to be a short series of papers dealing with the 

 stratigraphy and paleobotany of certain late 

 Cretaceous and early Tertiary formations in the 

 Rocky Mountain region it is thought desirable 

 to present rather completely a historical >re\iew 

 of opinion which led to the establishment of the 

 term Laramie and to its subsequent applica- 

 tion. This review includes not only the Lara- 

 mie formation in its typical area in the Denver 

 Basin of Colorado, but also various beds at one 

 time considered to be of Laramie age. For 

 more than 60 years what finally came to be 

 known as the "Laramie problem" has been 

 more or less of a storm center in American 

 geology. Its discussion has given rise to an 

 extensive body of literature, and it is only 

 within the last decade that a solution has been 

 arrived at which, at least to me, appears to be 

 logical and, it is hoped, permanent. 



The history of the Laramie formation, as 

 already intimated, is long and complicated, and 

 the literature is widely scattered through a 

 series of papers and reports in a manner that is 

 very confusing to one who attempts to gain a 

 comprehensive knowledge of it. A number of 

 articles have been published dealing more or 

 less completely with the historical develop- 

 ment of the Laramie problem. One of the 

 most complete for its time was' that by Lester 

 F. Ward, 2 published in 1886. Five years later 

 C. A. White 3 again reviewed the subject as it 

 finally appeared to one who had taken a large 

 -part in shaping it, and in 1906 George P. Mer- 

 rill * devoted a special chapter to the Laramie 

 question, which he ranked with the well-known 

 "Taconic question." The "Index to the 

 stratigraphy of North America," by Bailey 

 Willis, 5 also contains valuable data on the Lara- 



2 Ward, L. F., Synopsis of the flora of the Laramie group: U. S. Geol. 

 Survey Sixth Ann. Rept., pp.' 339-557, 1886. 



> White, C. A., Correlation papers— Cretaceous: TJ. S. Geol. Survey 

 Bull. 82, 1831. 



< Merrill, G. P., Confflbutions to the history of American geology: 

 U. S. Nat. Mus. Rept. for 1304, pp. 647-658, 1906. . 



s TJ. S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 71, 1912. 



mie formation, especially as regards certain of 

 the later phases of opinion regarding it. 



Although the term Laramie first appeared 

 in print in 1875, it is essential, to understand 

 the conditions which led up to the use of the 

 term and made it necessary, to go back at 

 least as far as 1854, the date which marks the 

 beginning of F. V. Hayden's explorations in 

 the Missouri River region. As Ward 6 says : 



From the circumstance that at nearly all places where 

 it has been recognized it consists to a greater or less extent 

 of deposits of lignite or coal, this condition was for a time 

 inseparably associated with it to such an extent that there 

 was a disposition to regard all the lignitic deposits of the 

 We3t as belonging to the same geological formation. 



Prior to the work of Hayden the presence 

 of coal in the upper Missouri River region had 

 been noted by Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806, 

 by Nicollet in 1839, by Audubon and Harris 

 in 1843, and by John Evans in 1849 and 1853, 

 but very little was recorded by these observers 

 concerning the geology. In 1853 F. B. Meek 

 and F. V. Hayden were employed by James 

 Hall, then and for many years thereafter 

 State geologist of New York, to visit the bad- 

 lands of White River for the purpose of mak^ 

 ing collections of Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 fossils in that region. They brought back 

 extensive collections of vertebrates and inver- 

 tebrates, the latter especially from the vicinity 

 of Sage Creek and several localities on Mis- 

 souri River, mainly below Fort Pierre. Sub- 

 sequently Hayden spent two years in explora- 

 tion and in collecting fossils in the same gen- 

 eral region, and in 1856 he again visited this 

 country in connection with an expedition 

 under the direction of Lieut. G. K. Warren. 



The data acquired on these expeditions re- 

 sulted in the publication of a series of valu- 

 able papers in the paleontology and geology 

 of the Missouri River region, or Nebraska 

 Territory, as it was then called. The first of 

 these papers was written by Hall and Meek, 7 

 and although it was concerned mainly with 



• « Ward, L. F., Synopsis of the flora of the Laramie group: TJ. S. Geol. 

 Survey Sixth Ann. Rept., p. 406, 1886. 



» Hall, James, and Meek, F. B., Description of new species of fossils 

 from the Cretaceous formation of Nebraska, etc.: Am. Acad. Arts and 

 Sci. Mem., vol. 5, pt. 2, pp. 379-411, 1855. 



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