17 



brown sandstone, containing irregular concretions of oxide of iron/' and nu- 

 merous mollusks of marine origin. Near Fort Harker, certain strata contain 

 large quantities of the remains (leaves, chiefly) of dicotyledonous and other 

 forms of land-vegetation. Near this point, according to the same authority, 

 the sandstone-beds are covered with clay and limestone. These he does not. 

 identify, but portions of it from Bunker Hill, thirty-four miles west, have 

 been identified by Dr. Hayden as belonging to the Benton, or second, group. 

 The specimen consisted of a block of dark bluish-gray clay-rock, which bore 

 the remains of the fish Apsopelix sauriformis, Cope. That the eastern bound- 

 ary of this bed is very sinuous is rendered probable by its occurrence at 

 Brookville, eighteen miles to the eastward of Fort Harker, on the railroad. 

 In sinking a well at this point, the same soft, bluish clay-rock was traversed; 

 and, at a depth of about thirty feet, the skeleton of a saurian of the crocodilian 

 order was encountered, the Hyposaurus vebbii, Cope. 



"The boundary -line, or first appearance, of the beds of the Niobrara divi- 

 sion has not been pointed out; but, at Fort Hays, seventy miles west of Fort 

 Harker, its rocks form the bluffs and. outcrops everywhere. From Fort 

 Hays to Fort Wallace, near the western boundary of the State, one hundred 

 and thirty-four miles beyond, the strata present a tolerably uniform appear- 

 ance. They consist of two portions : a lower, of bluish calcareo-argillaceous 

 character, often thin-bedded ; and a superior, of yellow and whitish chalk, 

 much more heavily-bedded. Near Fort Hays, the best section may be seen 

 at a point eighteen miles north, on the Saline River. Here the bluffs rise 

 to a height of two hundred feet, the yellow strata constituting the upper 

 half. No fossils were observed in the blue bed ; but some moderate-sized Os- 

 trece, frequently broken, were not rare in the yellow. Half-way between this 

 point and the fort, my friend N. Daniels, of Hays, guided me to a denuded tract, 

 covered with the remains of huge shells described by Mr. Conrad, at the close 

 of this section, under the names of Haploscapha grandis and H. eccentrica. 

 They may have affinities to the oysters; some of them were 27 inches in diam- 

 eter. They exhibited concentric obtuse ridges on the interior side, and one 

 species a large crest behind the hinge. Fragments of fish-vertebree of the 

 Anogmius type were also found hereby Dr. J. H. Janeway, post-surgeon. 

 These were exposed in the yellow bed. Several miles east of the post, Dr. 

 Janeway pointed out to me an immense accumulation of Inoccramus problc- 

 maticits in the blue stratum. This species also occurred in abundance in the 

 ;$ C 



