46 A. 0. Peale — Application of the Term Laramie. 



to most of the formations, about the only difference being as 

 to the age of the beds resting conformably upon the Fox Hills 

 Cretaceous of Hay den as exposed along the line of the Union 

 Pacific Railway and to the eastward of the foothills of the 

 front range of Colorado, where they were usually designated 

 by Hayden and the members of his survey as the lignitic beds 

 of eastern Colorado or the lignitic coal group of the eastern 

 slope. These beds were considered by King to be of Cretace- 

 ous age, while Hayden was inclined to consider them as belong- 

 ing to the Tertiary. At this time Clarence King wrote* to 

 Dr. Hayden asking him to propose a name for these debatable 

 beds — debatable only as to age, for both agreed, as to their 

 stratigraphic position. In reply to this letter Hayden sug- 

 gested the name Laramie, which was accepted by King as 

 indicated by him on page 331 of the volume on Systematic 

 Geologyf where he says : " During the slow gathering of the 

 evidence which shall finally turn the scale, I proposed to Dr. 

 Hayden that we adopt a common name for the group, and 

 that each should refer it to whatever age his data directed. 

 Accordingly it was amicably agreed between us that this 

 series should receive the group name of Laramie, and that it 

 should be held to include that series of beds which conforma- 

 bly overlies the Fox Hills.":); 



In accordance with this, in coloring the geological map of 

 Colorado we designated the beds above the Fox Hills as 

 Laramie and in referring to their age called them Post-Cre- 

 taceous. There was no type locality so far as we were con- 

 cerned, nor was there any such idea in the mind of Hayden. 

 He proposed the name partly because it was a euphonious 

 name and a broad one as he conceived it, the beds outcropping 

 not only in the Laramie plains but also on both sides of what 

 was then sometimes known as the Laramie range, and also in 

 the vicinity of the Laramie River. It was also proposed by 

 him partly out of compliment to Clarence King, who was then 

 working in what Hayden termed the Laramie plains, he using 

 the term in its very broadest sense as reaching from the Lara- 

 mie Range to the Wahsatch Range.§ 



* Clarence King's letter was found by the writer among the papers of Dr. 

 Hayden after his death. The name Laramie does not occur in it. 



f U. S. Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel, vol. i, 1878. 



% Dr. C. A.. White, in an interview (March 24, 1909) with the writer, con- 

 firms the statement as to the origin of the name Laramie and says further 

 that the last time he talked with Dr. Hayden the latter protested against his 

 (White's) having once used the term " The Laramie Group of King," when 

 he (Hayden) was the author of the name. 



§ " This great area [Laramie Plains] might be called a park ; it is enclosed 

 on three sides by extensive mountain ranges, but on the west its limits are 

 not well defined, inasmuch as no mountain ranges of any importance inter- 

 vene until we come to the Wahsatch Range in Utah." — Report U. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey Wyoming for 1870 (1871), p. 121. 



