282 M. I. Goldman — Catahoula Sandstone of Texas. 



be subsequently disturbed. That there is any type of sandy 

 sediment which may be considered to be characterized by 

 absence of bedding — unless it be beach sands as a product of 

 the maximum of wave action as just suggested — seems 

 improbable. Stream and delta deposits are stratified as the 

 result of variations in the velocity of the stream, littoral 

 deposits probably also from the same cause or from the larger 

 variations in the intensity of wave action, and in the same way 

 sand dunes show bedding due to variations in the velocity of 

 the wind,* though this bedding is often not thin enough, at 

 least as far as the eye can distinguish it, to appear in hand 

 specimens like those in question. f Of course beach sands also, 

 even though not showing lamination, would in a larger way 

 show variations in the grain of their material corresponding to 

 minor fluctuations of the relative level of sea and land, which, 

 as Philippic could show, produce that result even in deep sea 

 deposits. In fact here is the crux of the matter, for bedding is 

 only a relative term (wherefore I have preferred the word 

 lamination), and even where there is information as to the 

 presence of bedding in recent deposits figures for the fineness 

 of the bedding are generally not given. 



Still, to conclude by accepting Walther's principle, just 

 quoted, as true for the final state in which sedimentary material 

 is found, it may be concluded from the massive specimens of 

 the Catahoula sandstone, that either their material was accumu- 

 lated rapidly by a current of wind or water, or that it is a beach 

 deposit. 



9. Arrangement of fossils. 



In this connection, as being in fact actually a part of 

 the bedding, the arrangement of plant fossils in the sand- 

 stone must be considered. Here too conclusions are of neces- 

 sity based mainly on speculation or the most general obser- 

 vations and I offer them with corresponding reserve. I 

 think it may be said, however, that a wet leaf will be laid out 

 only fiat, perhaps folded on itself but still in a flat plane. 

 Now, as noted above, many of the leaves are embedded in this 

 sandstone in a curled condition and it seems to me a fairly 

 safe conclusion that this indicates burial in wind-blown material. 

 The leaf as it dried would curl and in this condition, rolled 

 along by wind with the sand, would be gradually buried in 

 whatever position it happened to be caught. Such a manner 

 of burial has been assumed for the large Credneria leaves 

 found in this condition in the Upper Cretaceous of Germany. 

 As for the nuts they too should, if buried in a body of water, 



*Walther, loc. cit., p. 638 top. Udden: The mechanical composition of 

 wind deposits, Augnstana Library Publ. No. 1, p. 19, 1898. 



f Oral communication from Dr. Udden. 



jPhilippi, E.: Uber das Problem der Schichtung, etc., Zs*. d. Deutsch. 

 Geol. Ges., lx, pp. 346-377, 1908. 



