HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE LARAMIE PROBLEM. 



81 



had no type localities of the Laramie Plains in his mind is 

 also evident from the fact that immediately following his 

 definition of the Laramie he gives as localities of its oc- 

 currence the following in eastern Colorado, just north of 

 the area in which the Hayden Survey was at work: 



Parks Station, Colo. 



6 or 7 miles west of Carr's Station, Colo. 



West of Greeley, Colo. 



Crow Creek, Colo. 



Platteville, Colo. 



These were followed by references to "good exposures of 

 Laramie " east of Separation and at other localities along 

 the line of the Union Pacific Railroad in northwestern 

 Colorado. It is interesting to note that Carbon, Wyo., 

 does not appear in the list, and that Carr's Station is only 

 about 24 miles east of the lower end of the Laramie Hills, 

 while the other localities are within short distances of the 

 east and southeast of the mountains. 



Further quotations might be made from the 

 writings of King and others in support of the 

 contention above made by Cross and Peale, 

 but they are hardly necessary, as it would seem 

 to be established beyond reasonable question 

 that no type section was named or intended 

 for the Laramie, and it is still clearer that it was 

 not intended to make Carbon and the Laramie 

 Plains such a locality. It has been contended 

 by some geologists that the original delimita- 

 tion of the Arapahoe and Denver formations 



from the supposedly continuous Laramie sec- 

 tion constituted a virtual redefinition of the 

 Laramie, but this ground does not seem well 

 taken, for the essential part of King's defini- 

 tion — namely, that it is the uppermost member 

 of the conformable Cretaceous series above 

 the Fox Hills — is maintained. This view was 

 further emphasized by Cross, 90 who said: 



Although the Laramie was simple in its essential defini- 

 tion and conception, the strata referred to it included 

 local deposits as well as those of wide distribution, and 

 knowledge concerning some of these beds was very meager 

 and untrustworthy when the group was established. It 

 is a most natural result of detailed studies during the 

 last 30 years that several formations at the top of the group 

 assumed to have the relations embodied in King's defini- 

 tion have been found to possess other relations. But 

 there is still a large formation answering to the fundamental 

 part of King's definition, and to such beds it seems to' 

 me both natural and most expedient to apply the term 

 Laramie in future. In the Laramie Plains there are, 

 according to Veatch, 6,500 feet of conformable Cretaceous 

 beds above the Montana strata and below the break at the 

 base of the Carbon beds. The geographic term is thus 

 still appropriate, even if the Carbon section be excluded 

 from the Laramie. The term has now been so widely 

 applied and for such a long time that it appears unwise 

 to drop it, even if there should be proved to be no true 

 Laramie beds on the Laramie Plains. 



" Cross, Whitman, The Laramie formation and the Shoshone group : 

 Washington Acad. Sci. Pro,c, vol. 11, p. 31, 1909. 



