The Misscnirian Scries of the Carbo/iiferous. — Keyes. 307 
were colored as New Red sandstone, or Triassic. The later 
English edition of the map, accompanying his Geology of 
North America, has the same coloration. 
During the next decade numerous visits were made to the 
Nebraska localities. In 1857, Hayden gave out the results of 
his observations. He refers the rocks, exposed south of the 
Platte river, to the Carboniferous or Coal Measures. From 
observations made during a brief sojourn in the region Marcou 
and Capellini were lead to place the Plattsmouth beds in the 
Lower Dyas, or Permian. A year later, Meek pointed out, in 
a special paper, the fact that the rocks in question belonged 
without doubt to the Coal Measures, and not to any younger 
formation. Geinitz, who described the fossils collected by 
Marcou in Nebraska, only incidentally mentions the limestone 
at Plattsmouth, remarking that it was probably below the Ne- 
braska City section, and belonged to the "obern Kolenkalk." 
Although so many references had been made to the forma- 
tion, no specific name was given to the limestone prior to^ 1872, 
when Meek considered the Plattsmouth section in considerable 
detail. He grouped about 200 feet of strata below the heavy 
limestone above the Plattsmouth into the "Platte division." 
This included all of the shales, now known to be not more 
than 100 feet in thickness, exposed in the vicinity of the Platte 
river, the limestone now called the Plattsmouth, and the few 
feet of shales beneath the latter, that are exposed at the steam- 
boat landing. As the greater part of the "division" is a well 
defined formation comprising almost entirely of shales, the 
term Platte has been reserved for that subdivision. Meek, 
however, in the same memoir calls the fossiliferous limestones 
the "Plattsmouth beds." By this name they have since be- 
come widely known. For this reason it is believed that the 
limestone should be continued to be known by the name of a 
locality which has become classic in American geology. 
From Plattsmouth the beds dip southward, and those ex- 
posed at that place soon disappear below the river level. Swal- 
low seems to be the only one who has suggested any connec- 
tion between these beds and those farther southward between 
St. Joseph and Kansas City. He says, incidentally, that a cer- 
tain limestone of his upper coal series is exposed at Bellevue, 
the mouth of the Platte river, near vSt. Joseph and elsewhere 
