PROSSER. | The Upper Permian. V7 
to their soft friable nature no longer afford prominent landmarks, 
though they still impress their presence upon the soil to which 
they have imparted its red color and loamy nature over a wide out- 
lying belt immediately underlayed by the upper strata of the Upper 
Coal-Measures.”! 
In 1885 Professor Cragin accepted St. John’s correlation and gave 
some account of the extent of the series. Professor Cragin followed 
the line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad from Wel- 
lingten to Medicine Lodge. “We come” he says “first upon the red 
sandstone of the Dakota at Milan. It also appears at certain 
points in the Chikaskia river. This is the main country rock west- 
ward to Medicine Lodge.’? The Gypsum Hills to the southwest 
of Medicine Lodge, were brietly described by Professor Cragin in 
this paper, where he stated that “The Gypsum Hills have their base 
of the Dakota sandstone. At their eastern outskirts, this formation 
includes their bulk, though even here they are capped by the 
Benton®.” 
The following year Professor Cragin referred the great gypsum 
bed of Barber and Comanche counties to the Dakota formation, the 
upper part of which he regarded as probably formed by the va- 
riegated sandstone (Cheyenne sandstone) while “the overlying dark 
shales, from which the ‘Black Hill’ takes its name, [are] the base 
of the Benton’.” 
In 1887 Professor St. John published his “Notes on the Geology 
of Southwestern Kansas,” in which the Red Beds were referred with 
a query to the Triassic, where they have generally been placed by 
subsequent writers. Professor St. John’s explanation for this cor- 
relation is as follows: “The oldest geological deposits [of the dis- 
trict described by St. John in this paper] appear in the eastern 
portion of the district, and from their lithological appearance and 
stratigraphical relations to well-determined formations between 
which they occur, it is inferred they hold the position of the Triassic 
Red-Beds which are so well developed along the eastern foot of 
the Rocky mountains a few hundred miles to the west. . 
1 Ibid., p. 589. 
2 Bulletin Washburn College Laboratory Natural History, vol. I, p. 86. Topeka. 
SUD IG ase 
4 Ibid., vol. I, May 1886, p. 166. 
