Review of Recent Geological Literature. 267 
F. B. Meek, referred it on fossil evidence, to the Eocene Tertiary. From 
the above date to 1876, these beds were continuously designated by 
Messrs. Meek, Hayden and other western geologists as Tertiary, and 
then, on Mr. Clarence King’s general map of the 40th parallel, they were 
included in the Laramie, where they have remained without question, 
except for a few lines in Dr. White’s Review of the Cretaceous of North 
America, in which he comments on the peculiarity of the fauna, and 
states that pending investigations may show that the beds may occupy 
an altogether lower position than had heretofore been generally sup- 
posed. The result of these investigations is saic to be “that the strata 
which have hitherto been known as Bear River Laramie, are not only not 
referable to the Laramie formation, but that they occupy a lower posi- 
tion, being overlain by marine Cretaceous strata, the equivalents of which 
are known to underlie the true Laramie.” 
In this connection it may be stated that the Canadian geologists have 
for some years been recognizing a series of fresh—or brackish—water 
sandstone terranes of a character precisely similar to the Laramie inter- 
bedded between typical marine Cretaceous shales of Montana or Colo- 
rado age. Of themthe Belly River series has been traced northward from 
the international boundary line to the vicinity of the North Saskatche- 
wan river; and the Dunvegan series has been found for a considerable 
distance on Peace river underlying marine shales holding characteristic 
Pierre (Montana) fossils. This latter sandstone series is also stated by 
Mr. J. F. Whiteaves in the report of the Canadian Geological Survey for 
1879-80, pp. 115 B, and 119 B to coutain a Cyrena (Corbicula?) “with out- 
line very like that of C. durkeei of Meek” and Corbula pyriformis? 
from the Bear River series of Wyoming. Assuming these identifica- 
tions to be correct we have in the far north an undisturbed sandy non- 
marine terrane intercalated in the marine Cretaceous shales, holding 
two of the same species of fossils as the Bear River formation, and 
occupying a position approximately the same or but a little above that 
assigned to it by Dr. White and Mr. Stanton. 
Mr. T. W. Stanton, in his paper of eighteen pages, vives the strati- 
graphical evidence of the position of the formation as obtained from 
four typical sections in southwestern Wyoming, in all of which the 
beds are highly inclined, folded or faulted, and in places overlain by 
nearly horizontal Wahsatch Tertiary. Mr. F. B. Meek’s original section 
on Sulphur creek is first given, and there it is shown not to be continu- 
ous from the Colorado subdivisions of the Cretaceous to the Bear River 
formation, as was originally supposed, but to include atleast two sections 
of the latter terrane, between which lie beds as low down as the Juras- 
sic, from all of which characteristic fossils were obtained. 
Finally in a table of formations the Bear River is designated as a series 
of “very fossiliferous argillaceous and calcareous shale, alternating 
with thin beds of sandstone,” and is placed between the “shales and 
coal-bearing sandstones” of the Colorado, and the “conglomerates and 
coarse sandstones” of the Dakota? 
