A. C. Peale — Application of the Term Laramie. 57 



Hills, and the original definition still held good and would hold, 

 though only a few feet of beds had been left in that strati- 

 graphic position. 



In his sixth conclusion* Mr. Yeatch says, " while strictly 

 speaking the name Laramie can be applied appropriately only 

 to the upper beds ( Upper Laramie ) and it cannot with any 

 propriety be restricted to the lower beds (Lower Laramie), the 

 consideration that it was proposed for the beds between the 

 "Wahsatch and the Marine Montana Cretaceous and has been 

 most commonly and extensively used in this broad sense, has 

 led to the suggestion that the retention of the name in the 

 original sense will cause the least confusion, and that it there- 

 fore might be expedient to define the Laramie as that series of 

 beds occurring between the Marine Montana Cretaceous and 

 the Fort Union ". 



In the first place Mr. Yeatch is not warranted in using the 

 terms Upper and Lower Laramie for his beds, as the Canadian 

 geologists have used these terms since the early eighties 

 (although they have misapplied them). It is manifestly an 

 incongruity to include in the Laramie a marine or brackish 

 water series and a fresh-water series which are separated from 

 each other by an unconformity involving, as Yeatch says, 20,000 

 feet of strata. As repeatedly shown in this article, the original 

 definition of the Laramie covers only the beds resting conform- 

 ably upon the Fox Hills. It was not proposed for the beds 

 between the marine Cretaceous and the Wahsatch, and if any 

 of the Fort Union or its underlying beds were included, it was 

 with the mistaken idea that the latter Avere conformable to the 

 Cretaceous beds below. Yeatch's redefinition of the term 

 would cause more confusion by far than by maintaining the 

 original definition and including in the Laramie beds only the 

 beds below the unconformity, resting conformably upon the 

 Fox Hills. 



Bearing in mind the fact that Yeatch always uses the name 

 Lower Laramie as the designation of the beds lying below the 

 great unconformity, I contend that even according to his own 

 presentation of the matter the term Laramie should apply to 

 them alone and that no new name is necessary. He saysf : 

 " There are reasons for believing that the enormous develop- 

 ment of Lower Laramie beds in the western part of the Lara- 

 mie Plains " more completely represents the Laramie 



deposition than at any other point." Why not therefore keep 

 the term Laramie for them so long as they coincide in strati- 

 graphic position with the beds that we know paleontologically 

 and stratigraphically to be Laramie east of the Colorado or 

 Front Range ? 



* This Journal, loc. cit., p. 20. 



f This Journal, vol. xxiv, p. 21, July, 1907. 



