92 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
rocks occurring in the two regions. Professor Stevenson has already 
ealled attention to the dissimilarity in the lithologic characters 
of the Red-Beds on the Oklahoma-Indian Territory line along the 
Canadian river and the fossiliferous Permian rocks of northern 
Texas. Professor Stevenson visited the Texas Permian region in 
company with Professor Cummins and wrote as follows: “If the 
beds in that region [northern Texas] are the same with the ‘Red 
Beds’ at Purcell and southward in Indian Territory, one will need 
fossils to prove the identity, for the lithological characters are 
wholly dissimilar; still the interval between the localities is con- 
siderable and change in characters may be gradual.’”! 
On account of this dissimilarity in lithologic characters and the 
absence of fossils in Kansas and northern Oklahoma together with 
the fact that there is as yet no account of the careful tracing of 
any part of the Red-Beds across Oklahoma to Texas where their 
age could be determined by comparison with the fossiliferous ter- 
ranes, the correlation of these rocks with either the Triassic or Per- 
mian is a matter of uncertainty. The writer is of the opinion that 
there can be no satisfactory correlation of the Kansas Red-Beds 
until they have been followed across Oklahoma to Texas, and the 
age of the Red-Beds of Oklahoma settled. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
Ag stated under the description of this series in Kansas, the Red- 
Beds consist essentially of a mass of reddish shales alternating with 
friable sandstones, with the exception of the massive gypsum so 
well shown on the Gypsum Hills southwest of Medicine Lodge. 
Again, near the central part of the Red-Beds there are beds of rock 
salt as shown by the deposits of the Great Salt Plain of the Cimarron 
river and in the Pratt well. The nature and general appearance of 
the formation has been well described by Professor Hill in the fol- 
lowing language: “Its name [Red-Beds] is derived from the fact 
that the surface of the whole country underlaid by it is of con- 
spicuous red colors, glaring vermilion or deep-brown chocolate some- 
times prevailing, varied only here and there by a bed of snow-white 
1 Transactions New York Academy Sciences, November 1895, p. 59. See pp. 56, 57 
for a similar statement. 
