44 



THE WHITE RIVER BADLANDS 



The Monroe Creek Beds. The Monroe Creek beds, 

 Hatcher states, are well shown in the northern face of Pine 

 Ridge at the mouth of Monroe Creek Canyon, five miles 

 north of Harrison, where they overlie the Gering sand- 

 stones, and are composed of 300 feet of very light colored, 

 fine-grained, not very hard, but firm and massive sandstones. 

 The thickness decreases rapidly to the east and increases to 

 the west. The beds are generally non-fossiliferous, though 

 remains of Promerycochoerus are found in it, hence the 

 name Promerycochoerus zone. 



The Harrison Beds. The Harrison beds receive their 

 name from Harrison, in the vicinity of which town the beds 

 are well exposed. As stated by Hatcher, they are composed 

 of about 200 feet of fine-grained, rather incoherent sand- 

 stones, permeated by great numbers of siliceous tubes ar- 

 ranged vertically rather than horizontally. They are further 

 characterized by the presence, often in great abundance, of 



Figure 12 — Section from Hat creek south through Sioux county to 

 Wind Springs, a distance of approximately fifty miles. Cook, 1915. 



those peculiar and interesting, but as yet not well under- 

 stood, fossils known as Daemonelix, (hence called Dae- 

 monelix beds by Barbour, who first studied them), and by 

 a considerable variety of fossil mammals belonging to 

 characteristic Miocene genera. 



Later investigation has shown that in some places the 

 division is not readily made on lithologic features alone, 

 but that the formation can in all places be separated 

 faunistically into lower and upper levels as indicated. The 

 section by Osborn, modified from Peterson, shows the rela- 



