GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 319 



upou the fucoidal sandstone, and whose sides, exposed by deuundation, 

 are blackened by outcrops of coal at different altitudes. Here is the 

 nearest place to the town where the coal is opened and sometimes 

 worked in a very limited extent. These details render the locality 

 easily recognizable. 



A few sections of the Lignitic measures of the Raton Mountains have 

 been given already from the hills along the creek.* They differ some- 

 what in the records of the distance and of the thickness of the lignite- 

 beds, but the differences are easily accounted for by the great variety 

 remarked, even at short distances, in the disposition of the strata of 

 those Lignitic formations. They are, therefore, perfectly reliable, and 

 it is merely to complete them that the two following ones are given here. 

 They point out the exact relation of the Lignitic formation to the Cre- 

 taceous, and mark, besides, what I consider to be the essential character 

 of a grou]3 of sandstone which separates these formations, and which, 

 taken as yet as a kind of debatable ground, has been dubiously re- 

 ferred either to the Cretaceous or to the Tertiary. The first of these 

 sections is taken along the small branch in whose banks the lignite-beds 

 appear in succession down to the Eaton Creek, and then following this 

 creek to the Purgatory River, where the Cretaceous measures are ex- 

 posed. It reads from top downward : 



LIGNITIC. 



Ft in. 



1. Sandstone and shale, covered witli pines 60 



2. Soft shale, alternating w ith soft clay, (soapstone) 35 



3. Outcrop of lignite, indiflcrent 2 



4. Soft-shale and fire-clay 26 



5. Lignite outcrop, thin j 1 



6. Hard gray shale, with fossil plants at base t 30 



7. Shaly hard sandstone, in bank 6 



8. Soapstone shale 2 



9. Lignite outcrop, good 2 



10. Fire-clay and shale i . : 36 



11. Lignite, exposed 2 6 



12. Fire-clay 6 



13. Softshale 30 



14. Lignite, opened 4 



15. Fire-clay 8 



16. Ferruginous and shaly sandstone, covered 50 



300 6 



SANDSTONE. 



17. Brown, reddish shaly sandstone, with debris of land-vegetables 37 



18. Yellow shaly sandstone, full of fucoids 5 6 



19. Ferruginous sandstone, barren 11 



20. White compact sandstone, in bank and barren 28 



21. Hard white sandstone, in bank, with fucoids 10 



22. vSoft white sandstone, with fucoids 32 



23. Very hard block sandstone, barren 19 6 



24. Ferruginous sandy shale, with fucoids 6 6 



25. White sandstone, barren 5 6 



26. Ferruginous sandy shale, with fucoids 8 



27. Red shaly sandstone, with great abuuclance of fucoids 3 



28. Hard white sandstone in bank, some fucoids 12 



178 



* F. V. Hayden's Report of the United States Survey of Colorado and New Mexico, 

 (1869,) pages 55 to 57 ; Notes on the Geology from Smoky Hills to Rio Grande, by T. S. 

 Leconte, M. D., pp. 20 and 21. 



i At a .short distance the sandstone No. 7 takes the place of the shale-bearing plants. 



