416 C. A. White — Puget Growpqf Washington Territory. 



what would be suggested by any of the present topographical 

 features of the region. That the present- topographical features 

 of that region differ greatly from those which prevailed dur- 

 ing the Puget epoch is indicated by other observations of Mr. 

 Willis. For example, he noted the absence of the Puget Group 

 high up in both the Olympic, and the northern Cascade moun- 

 tains, which leads him to believe that while that formation was 

 being deposited, the former mountains constituted an island, 

 and the latter, a peninsula. It is hardly to be supposed, how- 

 ever, that the topographical features of that region were per- 

 manent throughout the whole of the Puget epoch, because the 

 range of the molluscan fauna through the whole thickness of 

 the formation, as already mentioned, indicates that there was a 

 constant subsidence over the whole area within which the de- 

 posit took place, during the whole time of its accumulation. 

 Certain topographical changes in that neighborhood at least, 

 must have accompanied such a subsidence. 



In the report of Mr. Willis, already referred to, he not only 

 regards this formation as equivalent with the Laramie Group, 

 but he provisionally applies the same name to it. His reasons 

 for doing so. in addition to the fact that, like the Laramie, this 

 group apparently rests directly upon upper Cretaceous marine 

 strata, appears in the following paragraph which he has kindly 

 furnished me from an unpublished report of his upon a dis- 

 trict which lies to the eastward of Puget Sound basin. 



"The Laramie f of the Wenatchie Valley." 



" The Wenatchie river cuts a section across unmetamorphosed 

 conglomerates and sandstones bent in broad folds over axes 

 having a general north and south trend. This formation flanks 

 the Peshastan range on both sides, occurring on the south on 

 Schwak creek, and in the Klealim valley, and forms some of 

 high crests of the Cascade range north of Natchez. It is the 

 last formation deposited before the elevation of the Cascade 

 range and its spur, the Peshastan, and is thus identified, as well 

 as lithologically and in its stratigraphic relations, with the 

 Puget Sound Coal measures, the latter having been assigned to 

 the Laramie by Prof. J. S. Newberry on the evidence of the 

 leaf impressions.'' 



I think that all the known evidence is strongly in favor of 

 the view taken by Professor Newberry and Mr. Willis as to the 

 equivalency and probable contemporaneity of the Puget Group 

 with the Laramie ; but it may be regarded as certain that these 

 two formations were deposited in separate bodies of water and 

 under materially different conditions ; and that they were sep- 

 arated by a land area of considerable breadth. The area, how- 

 ever, was not so broad as to make it unreasonable to suppose 



