STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY 
347 
erroneous correlations. My own correlation of the Aux Vases 
sandstone, and the elimination of Englemann’s title from considera¬ 
tion was not made in a dingy, stuffy back-office on F Street in 
Washington City. 
The thick, massive sandstone forming the gates of the Riviere 
aux Vases in Missouri was not, then, either the Cypress sandstone 
of Englemann, in Illinois,^^ or the Big Clifty sandstone of Nor¬ 
wood, in Kentucky.^^ When it was suggested to christen the 
apparently nameless terrane there was seemingly urgent need for 
some definite geographic title.^^ This fact was also independently 
recognized by Weller,^® since he proposed in Arkansas the name 
Batesville sandstone for the same formation. Delayed publication 
of a few years gave priority rights to Aux Vases. 
Still another curious and vain attempt appears to supplant the 
title Aux Vases. Upon assumption rather than field examinations 
Weller proposes^’' the name Brewerville for the sandstone to 
which he originally applied the name Batesville sandstone. Later^® 
he explains how this came about; but the paliation is hardly any 
better than Ulrich’s wild guess on Cypress. 
Now, the Aux Vases sandstone has a more than local interest. 
Unlike so many of the formations with which it is associated its 
sedimentative significance goes far beyond its Illinois and Mis¬ 
souri boundaries. Its depositional aspects have wide scope. The 
stratigraphical horizon which it occupies represents elsewhere a 
well-defined and notable planation surface. It marks the first im¬ 
portant break in the great limestone succession of the region. By 
it first evidences are given of broad diastrophic movements which 
affected the entire interior of the continent. With it a new cycle 
of sedimentation really begins. Exclusively marine conditions 
which had so long prevailed over the area ceases. Littoral en¬ 
vironment commences to assume the ascendency. There begin 
those constant oscillatory changes which initiate the coal-forming 
period. The rock succession, of which the Aux Vases sandstone 
is the base, contrasts strongly with the previous limestone sequence, 
13 Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci., Vol. II, p. 189, 1862. 
14 Kentucky Geol. Surv., N. S., Vol. I, p. 369, 1876. 
15 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amrica, Vol. Ill, p. 296, 1892. 
16 Trans. New York Acad. Sci., Vol. XVI, p. 251, 1898. 
17 Trans. Illinois Acad. Sci., Vol. VI, p. 121, 1913. 
18 Journal of Geology, Vol. XXVIII, p. 286, 1920. 
