48 



E. M. MUSEUM MEMOIRS. 



and fragments of large palms. Still above this lies a thick, dark, lead-colored 

 deposit of what was once fine mud, and full of remarkably well-preserved speci- 

 mens of leaves and seeds. These beds are almost the highest point between Black 

 Butte and Bitter Creek stations, and due East from the former ; for at that place 

 the railroad begins a great bend to the South, which again turns northward to 

 Bitter Creek. For three or four miles the old overland stage-road runs parallel 

 to the railroad from Black Butte, with the deep bed of Bitter Creek between 

 them and high hills on either side. Then the road turns southeasterly, still fol- 

 lowing the creek, and begins a long series of ascents over bench after bench of 

 sandstone and shale, till the plains at Leclede are reached. None of these out- 

 crops were measured. 



At Leclede the road bends, runs almost due East, and is skirted a mile to 

 the South by a high and steep bench. Here the passage is made from the Cre- 

 taceous into some of the outlying Green River beds (Middle Eocene). The 

 bench was carefully measured with a tape-line, and the character and 

 thickness of the beds forming it, noted. Nine strata were distinctly visible. 

 The thickness of the lowest was 27 feet ; the color was brown ; the structure 

 shale-like, and the material apparently a fine mud. This was overlaid by 21.5 

 feet of true shale of many colors, some bands being light pink, some bluish- 

 green, and some white. Then came 20 feet of white sandstone in which was a 

 very considerable quantity of clay, forming with the sand a hard cement. The 

 fourth stratum resembled the third in structure, but was of a rusty-iron color, and 

 17 feet thick. Capping this came a layer of white, fine-grained sandstone 18 

 inches in thickness. It was very hard, and, resisting the wearing power of rain 

 and snow better than the beds of softer material that lay above and beneath it, 

 stood out some feet from the face of the bench. Immediately over this ledge 

 were 1 5 feet of white shale ; then came a bed, 24 feet thick, of grayish, fine- 

 grained sandstone full of great lumps of tough white clay ; then 4 feet of sand 

 and clay weathering into lumps, and finally 30 feet of clay very shale-like in 

 appearance. This was the uppermost stratum of the bluff, which measured from 

 top to bottom 161 feet. A careful search was made among the sand-heaps at its 

 foot for fossils, and a few fragments of the carapace and plastron of a small turtle 

 were found, but nothing more. None of the upper beds were examined ; for 

 the face of the bench was very steep, could indeed be climbed at but a few 

 places, and at those with difficulty. When, however, the ascent was made, a 

 plain, apparently as level as a floor, was reached which extended southward six 

 or seven miles to the base of Haystack Mountain and the borders of the Bad 

 Lands of Leclede. The beds last described were probably transition from the 

 Green River to the Bridger group. 



The aspect of the country at this place is most peculiar. The plains support 



