THE 



PERMIAN OF TEXAS AND ITS OVERLYING BEDS. 



W. F. CUMMINS. 



It is only intended in this report to give a resume of the work done* in 

 the Permain formation m Texas, as well as an outline of the leading charac- 

 teristics of the formation as I have observed them, and also to draw some 

 conclusion in regard to the economics of the district, leaving to a future 

 report the work of giving these facts a fuller and more extended explanation. 



The Permian formation in Texas embraces all that territory situated be- 

 tween the Coal Measures on the east and the base of the Staked Plains on 

 the west, except a line of disconnected hills extending from Comanche 

 County to Big Springs, ranging along the south side and almost parallel 

 with the line of the Texas and Pacific Railroad. These hills, at least in their 

 upper members, belong to the Comanche series of the Cretaceous. There 

 are also a few isolated hills north of the line of the Texas and Pacific Rail- 

 road, such as the Double Mountains in the western part of Stonewall County, 

 whose tops are capped with the rocks of the Cretaceous. 



The extreme southern limit of the Permain formation in Texas is a few 

 miles south of San Angelo, in Tom Green County. In that locality it is only 

 a few miles wide. It is covered on both the east and west sides in that vicin- 

 ity by the Cretaceous. The formation widens constantly to the northward, 

 until at its broadest part it is not less than 150 miles wide. 



The stratification is conformable with that of the underlying Carboniferous 

 and has a general dip to the northwest. 



The area underlaid by these beds is, as one would naturally suppose from 

 the character of materials of which they are made up (mostly sands and clays, 

 with interbedded sandstone and limestone), a beautiful rolling country, cut 

 here and there by smaller or larger creeks or rivers, with little timber save 

 along the streams, with broad valleys in places, and at others precipitous 

 canyons. Only where the heavy bedded limestones of the middle division 



*The observations on which this brief statement is based have extended over a period of 

 nearly ten years, although the closer stratigraphic study was mostly done during the field 

 season which has just closed. Previous to that time my investigations were carried on at 

 various places, and not connected by direct observation, as has now been done. 



