54: A. C. Peale — Application of the Term Laramie. 



ing the name was derived from such and such a locality." 

 Harden did not always give even names to the beds he studied, 

 as when in his earlier work lie gave numbers to his subdivisions 

 of the Cretaceous. It was not therefore the general policy 

 of the Hayden Survey to name geologic formations from any 

 particular localities in which there were type sections. There 

 is no more warrant for assuming that Hayden, when he sug- 

 gested the name Laramie, had in his mind any type locality, 

 such as Carbon as suggested by Veatch, than there is for 

 assuming a type locality for the name Colorado, which was 

 applied by Hayden to the three divisions of the Cretaceous — 

 Fort Benton, Niobrara, and Fort Pierre — on account of their 

 great variability in western Colorado and the difficulty of cor- 

 relating them with their equivalents in eastern Colorado.* 

 There was no type-section for the "Wahsatch formation, the 

 name applied by Hayden to the variegated sands and clays 

 west of Fort Bridger and in the vicinity of Evanston. The 

 Fort Union Group was the name given by him to beds exposed, 

 not only in the vicinity of old Fort Union, but to those extend- 

 ing northward into the British possessions and southeastward 

 along the Missouri River as far as Fort Clark and as exposed 

 at various places in Wyoming. That there is no type section 

 at old Fort Union I am prepared to say, after a personal exam- 

 ination of that region in 1907. 



That the name Laramie was not used by Hayden as an exact 

 synonym of Lignitic is evident from what has already been 

 said under a previous heading, where it is noted that he 

 included both Laramie and Fort Union under the term Lig- 

 nitic — that is, Lignitic was the broader term. 



Hayden's explorations began in the Upper Missouri Region 

 in 1853, and although he knew at that time that coal existed 

 in the Dakota group, for some time he regarded the entire Lig- 

 nitic group (excluding of course the Dakota coal) -as of 

 Tertiary age. In 1868f he recognized the existence of coal 

 beds extending into the Cretaceous, and in 1875, just before 

 the introduction of the term Laramie, came to the conclusion 

 that if a division of beds was based upon the presence of coal 

 a readjustment would necessarily follow. He says :J "If it is 

 true that, taking into view the entire Lignitic area of our 

 western Territories, the coal beds are continuous in every 

 division, from the Jurassic to the summit of the Upper Lignitic, 

 we might make this general division : 1st, Lower Lignitic group, 

 including all the Lignitic deposits of marine origin ; 2d, Middle 



*U. S. Geol. Expl. 48th Parallel, vol. i, Systematic Geology, p. 298. 



f Bull. TJ. S. Geol. and Geograph. Survey of the Territories, vol. i, No. 2, 

 p. 1 B (prefatory note), 1876. 



X Bull. TJ. S. Geol. and Geograph. Survey of the Territories, vol. i, p. 406, 

 1876. 



