150 
STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY 
Few workers of that day were so nimble as Hall in publishing 
results whether or not the facts had really been acquired by him¬ 
self or others. 
The controversy over the naming of the Kaskaskia formation 
is not so important per se, as it is the part which it played in the 
differentiation of the Early Carbonic section of the continental 
interior. Of this larger aspect it is evident that Hall had far 
better grasp than any of his contemporaries. 
Although the Kaskaskia section of beds as displayed at the town 
of Chester may not include all of the strata which should be 
assigned to the division, it is certain that Hall’s use of the title 
has priority over all others if the unit is to be recognized. There 
is no canon of nomenclature that admits the title Chester to recog¬ 
nition in another sense so long as the name is still in use in another. 
The only valid usage of Chester as applied to a terranal unit is 
that of Swallow, whose designation has been overlooked in the 
proposal recently of the name Palestine for the same sandstone. 
In order to avoid further confusion the latter title should be 
dropped, dispite the fancied advantages that its use might have. 
Keyes. 
Absence of Laramian Beds in Southern Colorado. Ever since 
Stevenson’s early investigations in southern Colorado and northern 
New Mexico, in connection with the prosecution of the Wheeler 
surveys in this region, the coal-bearing formations were considered 
strictly Laramian equivalents. On this point a voluminous liter¬ 
ature appeared to be in general agreement. The possibility of 
these strata being of a different geological age, or of different ages, 
was a relatively late phase of the problem. 
In 1902 when I first entered the New Mexican coal-fields under 
the aegis of railroads then building, I soon began to suspect and 
then to entertain doubts as to the correctness of the reference of 
the entire great section to the Laramie coal series. Casual examin¬ 
ation of the fossils collected and identified indicated that the 
principal coal-yielding strata were really well down in the Cre- 
tacic column. A considerable part of the upper portion of the 
vertical section was in like manner determined to be certainly very 
much younger. At the coal camp of Hagan, to the westward, at 
the eastern base of the Sandia Range, the Cretacic rocks were 
