DEPARTMENT OF THE INTEKIOB

BULLETIN

OF THE

UNITED STATES

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

3STo. 45

WASHINGTON

OOTEENMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1S87

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

J. W. POTVELL, DIEECTOE

THE

PRESENT CONDITION OF KNOWLEDGE

OF THE

GEOLOGY OF TEXAS

P.Y

ROBERT T. HILL

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1887

CONTENTS.

Page.

Prefatory note.............................................................. 7

I. HISTORIC STATEMENT OF GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATION,

Knowledge at the beginning of this century ................................. 9

Anglo-American adventurers and colonists................................... 10

Philip Nolan............................................................ H

American colonization period ........................ ................... 11

European investigators ...................................................... 12

William Kennedy....................................................... 13

G. A. Scherpf...... ...................................................... 14

Prince Carl Solms-Braunfols.. ......................................... 14

Victor Bracht........................................................... 15

Ferdinand Koemer ...................................'................... 15

United States military reconnaissances and explorations ..................... 18

Reconnaissances ........................................................ 21

Explorations ........................................................... 22

Exploration of the Red River of Lbuisiana....'...................... 23

United States and Mexican boundary survey......................... 24

Pacific Railroad surveys ............................................ 25

Thirty-fifth parallel survey...... ................................ 25

Thirty-second parallel survey ................................... 26

Artesian well experiment ........................................... 27

Geologic surveys conducted by the State .................................... 27

The Texas land office ..............................!^.................... 29

First geological survey (Shumard) ....................................... 29

Organization and equipment................................... ...... 30

Field labors ......................................................... 30

Methods of survey .................................................. 31

Maps...........----........................ ....................... 32

Operations of 1860...........'..................... .................. 32

Official results ...................................................... 36

Indirect results ....................................... .............. 36

Expense............................................................ 37

Second geological survey (Glenn-Buckley)............................... 35

Operations of 1874 .................................................. 40

Operations of 1875 ...............................'.................... 41

Recent miscellaneous'investigations ......................................... 42

Individual contributors ................................................. 42

Work of the United States Geological Survey............................ 47

Succession of scientific explorations ......................................... 48

II. SUMMARY OF RESULTS.

Topography ................................................................ 49

Classification of topography of Texas ................................... 52

Chart illustrating progressive classification of topographic features....... 53

(383) 5
6 CONTENTS.

Page.

Historic geology aud stratigraphy ........................................... 53

Table of geologic formations of Texas, with authorities.................. 54

So-called Archean and earlier Paleozoic.................................. 55

Carboniferous system ................................................... 57

Central Carboniferous area.......................................... 58

Trans-Pecos Carboniferous area ......'............................... 59

General conclusions respecting the Texas Carboniferous....:......... 62

So-called Permian or Permo-Carboniferous................................ 62

Trans-Pecos region of Shumard ..................................... 63

Permian of Cope and his assistants .................................. 65

Jura-Trias or gypsum strata............................................. 69

So-called Jurassic....................................................... 70

Cretaceous....--........................................................ 71

So-called Laraniie ...... ................................................ 84

Tertiary ................................................................ 84

Quaternary and other post-Tertiary strata ............................... 86

Geological deductions.................................................... 87

General conclusions ......................................................... 88

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PREFATORY NOTE.

Geologic investigation in Texas has been fragmentary and unsatisfactory for many reasons: hostile Indians till recently ravaged the 

western half of the State; the civil war suspended the work of a comprehensive geological survey inaugurated under the State legislation of 

1858, and that survey resuscitated and a later organization both came 

to naught. The U. S. Geological Survey has extended its operations, 

into the State too recently to increase greatly the published knowledge 

of the geology of Texas.

To study intelligently the geology of this State it is important that a 

digest of such material as has been already published should be made. 

The present bulletin comprises an historical statement of such scientific 

work as has added to available knowledge of the topography and the 

paleontology as well as the geology of the State, but it is not intended 

to include unpublished knowledge gained by my residence and study 

in the State, except as that knowledge modifies .comments on conclusions already in print. Other publications will embody such matter in 

due time. The present work does not extend the record beyond January 1,1886.

(385) 7

PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE GEOLOGY OF .TEXAS.

BY EGBERT T. HILL.

I, HISTORICAL STATEMENT RESPECTING GEOLOGIC INVESTIGATION,

KNOWLEDGE AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS CENTURY.

Geology as a distinct science is so recent that we should not expect 

to find specific information upon that subject in early records;-but geo. 

logic facts worthy of our attention are sometimes discernible in the descriptions of local geography and natural histoiy given by intelligent 

travelers. The most complete and trustworthy compilation of the early 

Spanish, French, and Mexican authorities, with other historical data, 

is to be found in a work prepared by William Kennedy, 1 which is preferable to many later histories because of the scholarly and unprejudiced 

manner in which it was written.

The knowledge derived from previous authorities was embodied in 

the works of Baron Friedrich Heiurich Alexander von Huinboldt, who 

visited Spanish America in the employ of Spain in the years 1799-1804, 

collecting all available information.

Although his studies extended into this century, his writings may 

justly be considered a correct statement of the geologic and geographic 

knowledge at the opening of the century. He first attempted to represent the principal features of the region on a map which accompanies the 

Voyage au regions dquinoctiales du Nouveau Continent, par A. de Huniboldt et A. Bonpland. His physical observations upon the mountains 

and plains, his numerous measurements of the region of the Upper Eio 

Grande, and his formulation of meteorologic laws concerning that region were all valuable, though indirect, contributions to our knowledge 

of Texas, which it seems he did not visit personally. A glance at his 

map is sufficient to show that the conception he possessed of this 

region, although the best of his time, was vague and indefinite. The 

sources and the courses of the rivers are incorrectly delineated. Streams 

having their sources in the eastern portion of the plains are represented 

as originating in lakes, an error probably arising from the fact that in the 

vicinity of San Antonio de Bexar, which at that time was the nucleus of 

Spanish settlement, the water courses arise from outbursting springs 

which usually expand into extensive pools of water. These phenomena

1 Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas. By William 

Kennedy, esq. In two volumes. London, 1841. 8°.

(387) 9
10 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OP GEOLOGY OP TEXAS. fBULL.45.

are purely local, however, and the streams of Texas as a general rule 

are but the seaward continuation of long arroyos usually dry in the beginning of their courses.1 The latitude and the longitude of all interior 

places are incorrectly given by many degrees.

The delineation of the old Spanish roads across Texas is also a feature 

of Baron von Humboldt's map indirectly bearing upon the geographic 

and geologic knowledge of the last century, for they indicate the extent 

of the country that came under the observation of the travelers of that 

time. They also indicate that the Spanish inhabitants were familiar 

with some of the results of one of the characteristic geologic features of 

Texas, for a road leads to the Paleozoic region of the San Saba, where 

it is certain that extensive explorations for minerals and some mining 

operations were conducted by them.2

ANGLO-AMERICAN ADVENTURERS AND COLONISTS.

The general exclusion of foreigners from the region while it was a 

province of the viceroyalty of New Spain, at the close of the last and 

in the beginning of the present century, tended to prevent exploration 

similar to that then going on in the United States, where the war of 

the Revolution had hardly closed before an epoch of scientific experiment and exploration was inaugurated. Before two decades of the present century had passed, governmental and private expeditions had explored a great portion of the territory of the United States as then defined. 

According to William Kennedy, who occupied a diplomatic position 

at a later period in Mexico,3 u it will readily be inferred that the success 

of the United States in achieving their independence and the rapid 

growtb of the federation were not regarded with indifference by the 

intolerant and suspicious government of Spain, whose step-dame treatment of its transatlantic dependencies supplied abundant cause of disaffection. Lest the dreaded principles of the North American Eepublic

should contaminate the populous districts of Mexico, it became more 

than ever necessary to guard against the intrusion of foreigners through 

Texas. The feelings entertained by the Spanish authorities were manifested in a favorite saying of a captain general of the eastern internal 

provinces * * * that, had he the power, he would prevent the 

birds from flying across the boundary between Texas and the United

1 Attention is here called to the misapplication of the old Spanish names by American travelers of this century, to be seen on comparison of any recent map with Huraboldt's. It may have been the natural result of the confusing manner in which the 

Spaniards applied the terms "muddy" and " red" to all streams Avithin this region 

that we have a great multiplication of " Red," "Colorado," "Pecos," and "Puercos" 

rivers throughout the Southwest.

3 Traditions of these old Spanish mines still cause the people of Central Texas to 

spend much time in endeavoring to find precious minerals in the various formations 

of that region.

3 Texas: The Eise, Progress, and Prospects of the Eepublic of Texas. By William 

Kennedy, esq. In two volumes. Vol. I, p. 236. London, 1841.

(388)
HILL.] ANGLO-AMERICAN COLONISTS. 11

States. Perpetual imprisonment, at least, awaited the unlucky wanderer who was caught on the forbidden soil without the protection of a 

special license." It is not to bo understood, however, that the Spanish government was not in its way a most liberal patron of natural 

science; its encouragement of Huinboldt affords sufficient evidence of 

this. It must be remembered, however, that the time of which we write 

(1790-1810) was 'one of peculiar relations to scientific work in New 

Spain. Not only did the Spanish government, after its manner, encourage science, but, according to the laws oif the Indies, which governed the supreme courts of Spanish America, permission to travel 

Avas procurable only upon condition that its object was research in natural history. The fact must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that the 

diluvian theory of that day had not yet met disastrous defeat from the 

stratigraphists and that the church that governed New Spain still directed and defiued the scope of scientific exploration within its territory, and infidel observations were considered no more desirable by the 

clergy than were Anglo-American explorations by the state. These, 

also, were the last days of Spain's tottering rule in Mexico, and soon 

the revolution that ultimately freed the latter country from her power 

formed another serious obstacle to investigations of Spanish America 

by citizens of the United States.

PHILIP NOLAN.

Notwithstanding the numerous difficulties, an irrepressible spirit of 

adventure led many citizens of the United States into Spanish territory. 

To one of these we are indebted for the first Anglo-American contribution to the knowledge of the geography of Texas. Philip Nolan, a frontier trader, an Irishman by birth, in 1797 made a trading expedition 

into the Province of Texas from Natchez, Miss., at that time the outfitting town of the southwestern border. He was a shrewd observer 

and recorded his impressions of the country, which, on his return to 

Natchez, he published in a small work accompanied by a topographic 

map, his being the first description of Texas by an actual observer 

printed in the United States. The results were trifling, the map was 

incorrect and restricted, and, moreover, the book is practically out of 

existence. Upon returning to Texas, Nolan paid the penalty of death 

for his ofiense against Spanish jealousy, being shot while resisting capture March 21, 1801.

Others soon followed Nolan, notwithstanding the watchfulness of 

the Spaniards. None of these, however, except one or two military explorers, referred to hereafter, left written reports of their labors.

AMERICAN COLONIZATION PERIOD.

The Anglo-American adventurers who had so assiduously penetrated 

the Spanish possessions brought back to the United States many reports 

of the fertility of the region. The Spaniards cared little for the land

(389)
12 PEESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

and were desirous of securing actual settlers. The combination of these 

two facts resulted in that unique epoch of the history of Texas now 

generally spoken of as the period of colonization under the empresario 

grants,1 1820-1834, during which time Anglo-American settlers gained 

a firm foothold in what had hitherto been the jealously guarded territory of Spain. During this period Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke, 

which gave increased impetus to Anglo-American settlement of Texas.

The Spanish system of empresario or contract grants of land was as 

follows: The authorities gave large tracts to parties or companies upon 

condition that they would locate upon them a certaiu number of colonists. The metes and bounds of these grants were not defined by actual surveys, but by certain vaguely understood natural boundaries, 

such as the streams and mountains. This system of land grants obviated the immediate necessity for governmental topographic surveys 

and permitted the location of lines to be intrusted to individuals, which 

much confused the topographic knowledge of the state.

Stephen F.' Austin, who on the death of his father, Moses Austin, 

inherited the latter's concessions, also succeeded him as leader of a body 

of immigrants from Missouri, and conducted the first colony from the 

United States to Texas, at the time (1821) a portion of Mexico. He was 

a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and, pursuing a different 

course from that adopted by most of the men who accepted the empresario grants, before locating his colony he personally explored the region 

gran ted him. He made a practical contribution to the knowledge of the 

country by means of many articles in the newspapers of the Northern 

United States and he compiled a map of Texas that was far superior to 

any that had previously been published.

Mary Austin Holley, in 1833, wrote a small work upon Texas, which, 

gave popular descriptions of its natural history and topography, but was 

not of marked value to science,

The Texan war of independence (1834-1836), the Texan Republic (1836- 

1845), and the war of the United States with Mexico (1846) marked years 

unproductive of important Anglo-American contributions to scientific 

knowledge of Texas, although a map was issued by Messrs. Hunt and 

Randall, of the Texas laud office, in 1835. They also published a small 

guide to Texas. The Santa Fe" expedition took place during this time, 

but its annals contain nothing of definite scientific value.2

EUROPEAN INVESTIGATORS.

We owe to foreign investigators the greater portion of the knowledge 

we now possess of the geologic features of Texas. The writings of Baron 

vou Humboldt have already been mentioned. During the political

1 See various histories ofTexas: Thrall, Keuuedy, Foote, and others. 

3 See Narrative of the Texau Santa Fe" Expedition. By George Wilkins Kendall. 

Harper Brothers, New York, 1850.

(390)
HILL.] EUROPEAN INVESTIGATORS. 13

troubles incident to the war of Texan independence and its accompa- 

.nying excitement several distinguished foreigners visited the region, 

and to them we owe not only the first purely scientific information but 

also by far the most satisfactory geologic treatise yet published regarding Texas.

WILLIAM KENNEDY.

The British government in the year 1838 sent William Kennedy upon 

a diplomatic mission to the young Republic of Texas. This gentleman, 

in addition to a most liberal education, possessed very keen powers of 

observation, which had been greatly sharpened by years of cosmopolitan travel. While in Texas he closely studied the topography, natural 

history, and geology of the country, and upon his return to England he 

published, in 1841, the first intelligent .statement of the natural and political history of Texas and the first scientific description of the country 

based upon personal observation.

Considering the time and the conditions under which this work was 

written, too much praise cannot be bestowed upon it. Its title page1 

makes no allusion to the valuable scientific matter it contains, and to 

this alone can I attribute the fact that the book is so little known to 

scientific men. Book I of Volume I, consisting of 200 octavo pages, is 

entirely devoted to the " Geography, natural history, and topography 

of Texas," and contains much of the knowledge set forth by later writers? 

most of whom, strange to say, have not mentioned this fountain head 

of their information. 2

Although the contribution was small in volume and general in character, it justly deserves the following credit:

(1) It gives the first carefully compiled topographic map of the 

region. This map represents authentically the state of geographic 

knowledge of Texas in the year 1839 and is far superior in points of 

detail, accuracy, and completeness to any of the maps that had been 

compiled previously or that appeared at about the same period.3

(2) It presents the first geologic description of the country. This 

description, although short and untechnical, outlines much of what 

later workers have more carefully described and published, excepting 

that of a purely paleontologic nature.

(3) It has the first intelligent description of the natural history of the 

country.

Mr. Kennedy gives first an account of the geographic extent and 

boundaries of the country and its natural divisions. Stating the " remarkable contrast between the border sections and the lands of the in* 

terior," he next deals with the seacoast peculiar to this region, and

1 Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas. By William 

Kennedy, esq. In two volumes. London, 1841. 

3 Dr. Roeraer is a notable exception. 

'Hunt and Randall'a and Scherpf's maps appeared about the same time as Mils.

(391)
14 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

he notes the " alluvial accumulations and encroachments of the land on 

the gulf." He also gives a general hydrographic view of the State and 

a comparison of the rivers on the eastern side with those on the western 

side of the Bocky Mountains, describing many physical features that 

have now become the common basis of all descriptions.

He devotes au entire chapter to the peculiar climatology of Texas, a 

subject of great importance in the superficial geology of the State, and 

one the peculiarities of which Mr. Kennedy described most ably, considering the state of knowledge at the time he wrote. The zoologic and 

botanic resources are given, and he was the first to describe the " cross 

timbers,"a unique feature of the country which still remains an unsolved 

geologic problem.

Mr. Kennedy in describing the general features of the country notices the great extent of the Cretaceous formation in Texas and mentions for the first time in print the older Paleozoic strata. He speaks 

of fossils, of the various minerals, of " peculiar species of stone," &c. 

The appearance of asphaltum is mentioned, as well as the superabundant petrified woods of Texas. Mr. Kennedy also gives us the most 

complete and trustworthy enumeration of the early Spanish, French, 

and Mexican explorations in Texas.

G. A. SCHERPF.

An emigration movement in Germany gave an impulse at this period 

to another series of investigations. We probably owe the first German 

description of Texas to G. A. Scherpf, who in 1841 published a work1 

accompanied by two maps, one being a map of the country to the Pacific 

Ocean and the other a map of Texas, compiled from the material of the 

General Land Office of the Republic, in 1839, by Richard S. Hunt and 

Jesse F. Randall.

The work, as indicated by Dr. Ferd. Boemer, is valuable from the 

fact that it is based upon the personal observations of the author during a long residence in the country, though Dr. Roeiner generally found 

through observations of the region here and there that Scherpf had 

painted his picture in too glowing colors.

PRINCE CARL SOLMS-BRAUNFELS.

In connection with the Mainz-Verein, a company organized to facilitate German emigration to Texas, much was published concerning the 

country. The patrons of the movement were German noblemen, who 

organized the union at Mayence in the spring of 1844.

In 1846 Prince Carl Solms-Braunfels, the chief promoter of the union 

and at that time its resident agent in Texas, published and distributed

^utstehimgsgeschichte und gegeriwiirtiger Zustancl des neuftii, unabhilngigeu, 

amerikanischen Staates Texas. EinBeitrag zur Geschiclite, Statistik und Geographic 

dieses Jahrhunderfcs. Ira Lande selbst gesamrnelt vou G. A. Scherpf. - Augsburg, 1841. 

8°, pp. vi, 154, 2 maps.

(392)
HILL.] EUROPEAN INVESTIGATORS. 15

throughout Germany a handbook for emigrants to Texas, accompanied 

by two maps.1

VICTOR BRACHT.

Victor Bracht added to the German works of this period one2 describing Texas in the year 1848. It contained a few references to the 

topography and the natural history of the State, but it was mainly an 

enthusiastic appeal for German emigration.

FERDINAND ROEMER.

In 1845 Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, the distinguished geologist and paleontologist, visited Texas to make a scientific study of its adaptation to 

German settlement. Dr. Eoemer was in the State from December,

1845. the month of annexation, until April, 1847. His labors resulted 

in the most valuable contributions to the knowledge of the geology of 

Texas that have yet been made, These were published as follows:3

Two preliminary papers in the American Journal of Science and Arts 

and two volumes in German, whose titles, given below, may be respectively translated as " Texas, with especial reference to German emigration and the physical condition of the country, based upon personal 

observations," Bonn, 1849, and "The Cretaceous formation of Texas 

and its organic remains, with a description of the Tertiary and Paleozoic strata appended," Bonn, 1852.

These works contain the first purely scientific discussions of TexasThe volume first named, as its title indicates, was chiefly written for

1 Texas: Geschildert in Beziehung auf geographisclien, socialen uud iibrigen Verhaltnisse, mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die deutsche Colonisation. Ein Handbuch 

fur Auswanderer nach Texas. Seineu deutachen Landsleuten gewidmet von Carl Pririsen zu Solrus-Braunfels; nebst zwei Karten von Texas. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1846. 8C .

2 Texas im Jahre 1848, nach mehrjiihrigen Beobachtungen dargestellt von Victor 

Braclit (seit 1845 Burger jenes freien Staates). Elberfel und Iserlohn, 1849, bei Biideker. 8°.

3 Following is a list of the writings of Dr. Ferdinand Roemer on the geology of 

Texas:

(1) "A Sketch of the Geology of Texas; by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer. (In a letter 

to the editors dated New Braunfels, German settlement on the Guadaloupe, in Western 

Texas, Comal County, June 12, 1846)." Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. II, pp. 358-365

1846.

(2) "Contributions to the Geology of Texas; by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer." Ana. 

Jour. Sci., 2d sex., Vol. VI, pp. 21-28, 1848.

(3) Texas: Mit besonderer Riicksicht auf deutsche Auswanderung, und die physischea Verhaltnisse des Landes nach eigener Beobachtung geschildert von Dr. Ferdinand Roomer. Mit einem naturwissenschaftlichen Anhange und einer. topographischgeognostischen.Karte von Texas. Bonn, bei Adolph Marcus, 1849. 8°, pp. xiv, 2, 

464, with map.

(4j Die Kreidebildungen von Texas und ihre organischen Einschliisse, von Dr. 

Ferdinand Roemer. Mit einem die Beschreibung von Versteinerungen aus palaozoischen und tertiaren Schichten enthaltenden Anhange und mit 11 von C. Hohe nach 

der Natur auf Stein gezeichneten Tafeln. Bonn, bei Adolph Marcus. 1852. 4°, 100 

pp., with plates.

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16 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OP TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

German emigrants, but its contents include much valuable scientific 

matter in addition to the first geologic map of Texas. This was printed 

in colors, indicating the superficial distribution of the formations. Al. 

though crude and imperfect, it contains all the definite information of 

the region then accessible and most of what has been delineated on 

more recent maps.

The scientific contents of this work, in addition to the above described 

map, are as follows:

(1) The geographic position and bounds of the State.

(2) A description of the topographic features of the country.

(3) Its general botanic and zoo'logic featur.es.

(4) Its mineral products.

(5) Bibliography of -writings on Texas.

(6) Stratigraphic features of the State, including descriptions of the following 

formations: The diluvial and alluvial (Quaternary), the Tertiary strata, the Cretaceous strata, the older or Paleozoic strata, the Azoic l strata.

(7) The first contribution to the paleontology of Texas, consisting of descriptions 

(not figured) of the following faunas that ho studied, many species of which were entirely new to science: The fossils of the Cretaceous and the fossils of the Carboniferous and Silurian strata on the San Saba River.

(8) A description by Rev. Adolph Scheele of the plants of Texas collected by Dr. 

Roemer.

(9) A zoologic description of the region, giving many descriptions and localities of 

the radiata, articulata, mollusca, and vertebrata.

Although Mr. Kennedy had previously alluded to many of the facts 

here set forth, Dr. Eoemer deserves the credit of developing and presenting them to the world; for, as he said at the time this publication 

was made, he had been unable to find a single European or American 

publication on the peculiar features or distribution of the geologic 

formations of Texas.2 The explorations of Dr. Eoemer in the western 

portion of the State were limited by the fact that those formations 

whose exploration would yield the most interesting geologic results 

begin where the settlements left off and where were located the hunting 

grounds of murderous Indian tribes.3 So important were the geologic 

observations of Dr. Eoemer, as announced in this volume (and a few 

scattering magazine articles the year before), and so minutely do they 

bear upon the subsequent pages of this account that it is thought desirable to give a brief re"sum6 of the work.

(1) He outlined and discussed the age and stratigraphic conditions 

of the alluvial and Quaternary deposits as now generally accepted and 

noted the finding of fossil vertebrates4 in many localities. He also noted 

the fossil exogenous woods which they contained, lamenting that their 

proper horizon was not known. Their occurrence with flint nodules in 

the detritus of the Tertiary strata he thought an indication of their Cre1 Not so considered now.

2 Texas, p. 365.

3 Ibid., p. 366.

* Previously noted by Wm. M. Carpenter. See Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. I, p. 244.

(394)
HILL.] EUROPEAN INVESTIGATORS. 17

taceous origin. He expresses the opinion that this "diluvial and alluvial" formation is composed by the sedimentation from the erosion 

going on iii the western portion of the State.

(2) He first described the occurrence of the Eocene in Texas, at Wheelock, Caldwell County, where he found Pleurotoma, Fusus, Turritella, 

Cerithium, Natica, Bulla, Dcntalium, Cardita, Corbula, Nucula, &c., and 

justly concluded that they were identical with those of the formation at 

Fort Claiborne, Alabama. "It is hardly to be believed," he correctly 

says, 1 "that this Tertiary formation is limited only to this point on the 

Brazos in Texas, but most probably it is part of a continuous band, as 

is the case in Mississippi and Alabama, extending along the foot of the 

Cretaceous, and only the detritus of the later alluvial formations prevents its exposure in most places."

(3) He outlined and described the Cretaceous formation of Texas.2 

" Of all the formations," said he,3 " either eruptive or stratified, the 

Cretaceous formation plays by far the most important part in the geologic features of Texas."

(4) He first noted the absence of the Jurassic and the probable absence of the Triassic4 formation from the geologic series in Texas.

(5) He first described the stratigraphic relations and the organic inclosures of the Paleozoic rocks between the Pedernales and San Saba 

Eivers, upon the right bank of the Colorado. This peculiar, isolated 

outcrop of Paleozoic strata (Potsdam of Walcott), upon the position 

and relations of which Mr. C. D. Walcott has lately thrown so much light, 

was well described by Dr. Roeiner, considering the state of geologic 

knowledge at that time. He also noted its resemblance to a certain isolated patch of what he considered similar rocks in Missouri.

Of these rocks:

(a) He first recognized the Carboniferous formation, not by any lithologic peculiarity, but by its undoubted, characteristic fauna, including 

Ortliis umMculatum von Buch and Spirifera crenistriata Sowerby. This 

outcrop was the most southern exposure of the Carboniferous in Texas 

and Dr. Eoemer was unable to explore it farther north.5

(6) He first noted the absence of the Devonian in Texas, but erroneously concluded that this formation does notextend westof the Mississippi.6

(c) He described an impure, fragmentary, semicrystalline limestone 

north of the Llano River, in horizontal or hardly disturbed strata, full

1 Texas, p. 372.

2 For details, see p. 71.

3 Texas, p. 373.

4 Dr. Roomer's observations did not extend westward to that portion of Texas 

now said by some disputants to be Jura-Trias.

5 Innumerable allusions to " coal" are found in popular works, but most of these 

undoubtedly refer to the widely disseminated true lignite of the Cretaceous and Tertiary, which is very abundant in this portion of Texas.

6 Texas, p. 389.

Bull. 45 2 (395)
18 PEESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

of organic remains, mostly trilobites, only one Orthis in addition to these 

having been observed.

Dr. JRoemer observed the same strata some forty miles distant and 

described several additional organic forms, including the new species 

PterocepJialia Sancti Sdbce Eoemer. This he concluded1 was Lower Silurian. He found at-another place a stratum which he also considered 

Lower Silurian, and which he described as consisting of a firm, white, 

silicious limestone containing Euomplialus Sancti Sabce Koemer.

(d) He described the character of the older crystalline rocks that underlie the Silurian (Cambrian) strata.

Dr. Roemer's celebrated monograph (Die Kreidebilduugen von Texas 

und ihre organischen Einschliisse) was an elucidation of thefacts he had 

already given in his Texas. Its chief additional points are the figures 

of Texas fossils and tbe careful, accurate descriptions of the same, as 

well as the more detailed account of the Texas Cretaceous. The author 

alluded to his descriptions in the work entitled Texas as being merely 

diagnoses, although they far excel in accuracy and fullness many of the 

descriptions since published by early American paleontologists. This 

work is one of the most complete and satisfactory of the early contributions to the geology of the United States, and, although printed in 

1852,2 it still remains the only monograph devoted entirely to the geology of Texas.

U. S. MILITARY RECONNAISSANCES AND EXPLORATIONS.

Principal military reconnaissances and explorations in Texas conducted ly il\e United States

Government.

Freeman's exploration of Red Elver.

LieuiJ.W. Abort. ................

Lients. Bryan, Micliler, Smith, and

Exploration of Red River (Capt. 

R.B'. Marcy).... .................

Pacific Railroad surveys, thirtyfifth parallel (Lieutenant Whippie)................-..-.........

Thirty-second parallel (Capt. J.

United States and Mexican boundary survey (Maj. W. H. Emory) . . 

Artesian well experiment on 

Staked Plains (Cap't. J". Pope) ....

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1 Texas, p. 388.

3 Written iu 1848-'49 cm material collected from 1845 to 1847.

(396)
HILL.] GOVERNMENT EXPEDITIONS. 19

Our Government has always exhibited commendable enterprise iu 

the exploration of its own territory. President Jefferson inaugurated 

this wise policy during his first administration by sending Lewis and 

Clarkeupon their memorable expedition to the Northwest. Had the 

State of Texas shared the benefits of the first half of the century that 

were enjoyed by the States already in the American Union, its geologic 

and topographic features would now be much better understood. Notwithstanding that Texas was then part of another country, early United 

States explorations several times traversed its territory, as recorded in 

the works mentioned below. 1

In 1806 Major Pike was ordered to ascend the Arkansas Elver to 

its source, thence to strike across the country to the head of Eed 

Eiver, and then descend that stream to Natchitoches. By mistake he 

descended the Eio Grande. He was captured by the Spanish authorities, who sent him home under escort, by way of Chihuahua, El Paso, 

San Antonio, and the Sabine. His work was of much geographic value 

concerning the Upper Arkansas region, but added little of value to 

scientific information concerning Texas. It failed in its original object, 

to discover the sources of the Eed Eiver.

The next year (1807) Lieutenant Freeman and party were sent out 

by President Jefferson to explore the Eed Eiver to its sources, but they 

were arrested near the eastern border of the present Panhandle of 

Texas and returned to the United States. The Spanish government, 

alarmed by these explorations, strengthened its fortifications on the eastern border of Texas to keep out all intruders.

The next Government expedition to penetrate Texan territory was 

the one conducted by Major Long, in 1819-'20. On his return from the 

Upper Arkansas he traveled several hundred miles down the Canadian, 

under the supposition that it was the Eed Eiver. A report of his journey was published.2 This contained an interesting geographic description of the country, with some geologic-facts. Although the Canadian 

region naturally belongs with the Indian Territory, political boundaries 

have included a portion of it in Texan territory, and hence to Major 

Long's description of it belongs the credit of being the first practical

1 Thrall's History of Texas, p. 24.

Exploration of tho Ked River of Louisiana, by R. B. Marcy, &c., p. 3.

An account of expeditions to the sources of the Mississippi, and through the western parts of Louisiana, to the sources ©f tho Arkansaw, Kaus, La Platte, and Pierre 

Jaun Rivers; performed by order of the Government, of the United States during 

the years 1805, 1806, and 1807. And a tour through the interior parts of New Spain, 

when conducted through these provinces, by order of the captain-general, in the 

year 1807. By Maj. Z. M. Pike. Illustrated by maps and charts. Philadelphia, 1810- 

8°, pp. 7, 277; 4, 67, 55, 87,1 portrait, 6 maps.

3 Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in 

the years 1819 and '20, by order of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War: under 

the command of Major Stephen H. Long. From the notes of Major Long, Mr. T. Say, 

and other gentlemen of the exploring party. Compiled by Edwin James, botanist 

and geologist for the expedition. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1823. 8°.

(397)
20 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OP TEXAS. [BULL; 45.

contribution to geologic knowledge of Texas by the Government explorations.

Lieut. J. W. Abert, while returning from New Mexico in 1845, also 

descended the Canadian Eiver through the northern portion of the Panhandle of Texas. His itinerary and the accompanying illustrations 

throw some light upon the physical features of the region, but convey 

little accurate geologic information.1

In 1840-'41 a joint commission, representing the United States and 

the Eepublic of Texas, ran the Louisiana-Texas boundary. The Journal of the Joint Commission affords no geologic information, although 

a few facts may be inferred from the meager topographic data. This 

exploration was exceptional in a period of reconnaissances.2

Government explorations were inaugurated in Texas soon after the 

annexation of that Eepublic and. the subsidence of excitement incident 

to the war with Mexico which followed.

By the articles of annexation (1845) it was stipulated that the United 

States Government sliould protect the people of Texas from the Indians 

upon their western and northern borders. The settlements at that time 

did not extend beyond the eastern third of Northern Texas and the city 

of San Antonio in the south. One of the first acts of the United States 

Government was to establish a chain of forts from Fort Washita, Arkansas (now Indian Territory), on the Red River, to near the present site 

of Fort Duncan, near Eagle Pass, on the Rio Grande,3 including Fort 

Worth (now the prosperous city of the same name) j Fort Graham, on 

the Brazos, in Hill County; Fort Martin Scott, near the present town 

of Fredericksburg; Fort Croghan,4 on the Colorado; and Fort Lincoln, 

on the Rio Seco, in the southwest corner of Medina County. This chain 

of fortifications became the base of a series of military explorations in 

Western Texas that added greatly to the fund of knowledge concerning that region.

The work accomplished was of two kinds, each of which was of some 

definite value to geologic knowledge. The first was work of reconnaissance for the purpose of obtaining an idea of the general topography of 

the country in order to facilitate military operations. The second comprised detailed surveys for purposes other than military, embracing the 

great surveys for the exploration of the railway routes to the Pacific, the 

exploration of the Red Eiver of Louisiana, the United States and Mexican boundary survey, and an experiment in digging artesian wells on the

1 Eeport of an expedition, by Lieut. J. W. Abert, on the Upper Arkansas arid 

through the country of the Comanche Indians, in. 1845. Twenty-ninth Congress, 

first session, Senate Document 438. Washington, 1846.

2 Twenty-seventh Congress, second session, Senate Document 199, pp. 54-57, with 

maps.

3 The northeast and southwest line of this chain of forts almost coincides with, the 

eastern boundary of the true Texas Cretaceous area.

4 Abandoned.

(398)
niLL.l MILITARY RECONNAISSANCES. 21

plains. All these expeditions were conducted by officers of the regular 

Army, frequently accompanied by scientific specialists.

The greater part of the reports of these expeditions were published, 

the first in 1850,: though some of them can only be found in manuscript 

in the archives of the War Department at Washington,2 including all 

preceding 1849.

The character of the published reports was of every degree of value, 

varying in length from brief communications of only a page or two to 

large sets of octavo volumes replete with original matter.3

RECONNAISSANCES.

At the close of the Mexican war very little was known of Texas west 

of the line of fortifications erected in 184G->47. Not the source of a 

single river heading in the great plains was definitely known and nothing whatever of the geology of that territory had been revealed.

The first military reconnaissance was that undertaken by Lieut. 

William F. Smith,4 February, 1849, for the purpose of reconnoitering a 

wagon road from San Antonio to El Paso, a distance of 632 miles. His 

brief report is very general in its character, but gives many hints concerning the topographic features of the country. It contains no direct contribution to geologic knowledge.

The next expedition was conducted by Lieut. N. Michler, jr.,5 and 

had for its object the reconnaissance of a military road from Corpus 

Christ! to the military post on the Leona. His report contains numerous descriptions of the topographic features of the region traversed. 

Although its character is purely that of preliminary reconnaissance 

and its scientific allusions are vague and incidental, the report still remains one of the best descriptions of that portion of the country.

The next exploration of 1849 was that reported upon by Lieut. William 

H. C. Whiting.6 Tho object of the undertaking can be best understood 

by the following extract from the original orders under which he acted: 7

It being very important that a military reconnaissance should be made of the western frontier of Texas, indicated by the chain of posts now established, commencing 

at the Rio Seco and terminating on the Red River at the mouth of the False Washita, 

you have been selected for that duty. You will bo pleased to embrace in your report 

the general character of the country, the roads to be constructed between the posts, 

timber and stone for quarters, fuel and water, and the healthfulness of the country.

1 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 64, Thirty-first Congress, first session, 1850. Reports of the 

Secretary of War.' This contains reconnaissances iu Texas and adjacent regions by 

sundry officers in 1849.

3 For a complete map of Government explorations, see Progress Map of the United 

States Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, 1882.

3 Reports of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 4°, 3 vols.; Pacific 

Railway Reports, 4°, 12 vols., &c.

4 Senate Ex. Doc. No. 64, Thirty-first Congress, first session, 1850. Report of the 

Secretary of War, p. 6.

5 Ibid., p. 7.

6 Ibid., pp. 235-250.

7 Ibid., p. 236.

(399)
22 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OP GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [HULL. 45.

Lieutenant Whiting's report, made in accordance with the foregoing 

instructions, is by far the most intelligent and comprehensive of the 

military reports of that year. While keeping the main object of the 

journey in view, he does not lose an opportunity to interpolate observations upon the geology of the region. His report, of only thirteen 

pages, is the best yet made of the country traversed, although its contribution, to scientific knowledge is small.

A most important contribution to the topography of the region between El Paso and Fort Washita was made by Capt. Randolph B. 

Marcy upon his journey eastward from Santa Fe to Fort Smith. His 

route intercepted the headwaters of the rivers that rise along the eastern borders of the Staked Plains and was subsequently visited by the 

Pacific Railroad surveys. His report includes the first printed description of the region, which will be treated somewhat at length in subsequent pages.

This journey, the first of a series made by Captain Marcy in that 

region, furnishes the greater portion of our knowledge concerning it. 

The publications of his observations consist of a large map, showing 

the routes traversed by him during the years 1849, ISoO, and 1851, and 

his report upon the exploration of the Red River of Louisiana, the latter 

belonging to the work of exploration, more fully noted hereafter.

Meanwhile Lieut. W. F. Smith, who had completed his reconnaissance of the country between San Antonio and El Paso, was detailed 

to explore the Sacramento Mountains west of the Pecos River. His 

report of the work is only two printed pages, but, comparatively, is a 

valuable contribution to the topography of the region, about which so 

little is yet known.

Lieut. Francis N. Bryan conducted another expedition in this year. 

His object was to survey a road from San Antonio to El Paso. His 

published itinerary of the forty-six days occupied in performing tbe 

journey contains much general information concerning the country 

traversed.

Another contribution to the geography and topography of Texas was 

made by Lieutenant Michler in the year 1849. He followed Captain 

Marcy's trail from Fort Washita to the Pecos River. Upon arriving at 

the Pecos he turned eastward to San Antonio. His printed report was 

of a general character.

Other reconnaissances were made during the succeeding years, but 

little has been published concerning them except what is embodied in 

the reports of the more detailed explorations.

EXPLORATIONS.

The work of the Government expeditions hitherto made, although 

often securing valuable data, was purely that of hasty military reconnaissances; but we shall see that the national authorities commenced

(400)
Biix.1 MILITARY EXPLORATIONS. 23

a series of more deliberate expeditions, usually accompanied by scientific specialists, beginning with. Captain Marcy's exploration of the 

Eed Eiver of Louisiana in the year 1852 and continuing until the coinpletion of the United States and Mexican boundary survey in 1855, 

and including some minor work extending to the year 1858. Thirtyfive years ago little was known of Texas west of the one hundredth 

meridian; even the headwaters of Eed Eiver had not been explored; 

to-day little is known of this region, and no map exists containing 

more than an approximation to its topography.

EXPLORATION OF THK EED KIVEB OK LOUISIANA.

In 1852 Captain Marcy was ordered to explore Eed Eiver to its source. 

Upon his return he published a report 1 of the expedition, which contains the first geologic contribution of value for that part of the State. 

From this report is compiled the following r6sum6 of the work accomplished by the exploration and its scientific corps:

(1) Barometric and astronomic observations were made by Lieut. 

George B. McOlellau. Although these were oftentimes incorrect,2 they 

constituted a definite contribution to the altitude of that region.

(2) A practical geologist, Dr. G. G. Shurnard, accompanied the expedition and made many notes of value, communicating to the world 

through his own report and the reports of others upon his collections 

many facts concerning the local geology. His work will be further 

noticed in this paper.

(3) The source and the confluents of Eed Eiver were delineated upon 

the map.

(4) Collections of botanic and zoologic specimens of great value were 

made, upon which many publications were afterwards based.

The strictly geologic work accomplished by this expedition was as 

follows:

(1) Dr. George G. Shumard, the accompanying geologist, gives a brief 

description of the country from Fort Smith, Arkansas, westward, by 

the way of Fort Washita (ten miles north of the present city of Denison, 

Tex.) and Fort Belknap, Texas, to the headwaters of Eed Eiver. His 

paper contains the first descriptions of the Coal Measures (Carboniferous) of the Indian Territory and Central Texas; many sections of the 

gypsum bearing region, commonly called the Jura-Trias or Eed beds, 

and the best we now possess of them; descriptions of the Wichita Mountains, composed of granitic rock, which are still but little understood; 

and interesting data concerning the Cretaceous strata of that region.

1 Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana, in the year 1852, by Randolph B. 

'Marcy, captain Fifth Infantry, U. S. Army, assisted l>y George B. McClellau, brevet 

captain U. S. Engineers ; with reports on the natural history of the country and 

numerous illustrations. Washington, 1854.

" Lieutenant McClellan located the one hundredth meridian nearly 70 miles east of 

its true position, an error which has caused considerable misunderstanding concerning the boundary of Texas.

(401)
24 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

It is to him. that we owe the first presentation of these strata as they 

occur at Fort Washita and southward from that place in Texas.

(2) A valuable contribution to the mineralogy of the region, by Dr. 

Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst. His paper treats of the vast gypsuin 

deposits and the economic and scientific value of that mineral as it occurs in Texas.

(3) Descriptions of the Carboniferous and Cretaceous fossils collected, 

with figures. This, the paleontologic portion of the work, was the first 

contribution by Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard to the geology of Texas. 

The figures are very poorly executed and it is doubtful whether their 

publication has been of value.

(4) A valuable map of the region, by Captain Marcy, accompanies 

the report. It contains the results of observations during many years 

of that officer's travels in this region.

UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY SURVEY.

While Captain Marcy was exploring the northern portion of the 

State, another expedition was in progress upon a much larger scale 

along the southern boundary. This was the United States and Mexican boundary survey of 1848-1855. It is well to bear in mind the immense size of the State of Texas and to remember.that Marcy's investigations were in the northwestern portion and Boemer's in the southeastern central, the United States and Mexican boundary survey being 

confined to the southern region.

The work of this survey in Texas commenced in the year 1853, under 

Major W. H. Emory, and the field work continued through the year 

1854. In 1857 the report 1 of the survey was published. This is of inestimable value to science. It contains the first geologic descriptions 

of the great region drained by the Eio Grande. In fact, the three large 

quarto volumes of this report, except a few magazine articles, still form

almost the sum total of the literature of that section. ,

The report embraces papers upon the geology of the route by Messrs. 

Arthur Schott, James Hall, and T. A. Conrad. Messrs. Hall and Conrad had not seen the region, but made vague and general deductions 

from reports and from specimens collected by members of the party. 

Mr. Schott's descriptions are clear and accurate so far as I have observed. Mr. Conrad's paleontologic descriptions were too often based 

upon material that modern paleontologists would not consider trustworthy evidence of new species. In several instances the localities he 

gives in the publication disagree with the ones marked by the collector, 

Mr. Schott, upon the specimens now in the collections of the National 

Museum.

1 Report on the United States and Mexican boundary survey, made under the 

direction of the Secretary of the Interior, by William H. Emory, major First Cavalry and United States commissioner. Vol. I. Washington, 1857.

(402)
HILL.] MILITARY EXPLORATIONS. 25

Dr. 0. C. Parry, who wrote the paper in Major Emory's report upon 

the geology of the upper portion of the Rio Grande, states that the 

portion of the river from seventy miles below El Paso to Presidio del 

Norte did not come under his personal observation. 1

These facts are given not to disparage the work, which, as already 

said, is by far the best contribution to the geology of the Eio Grande 

from El Paso to its mouth, but to show how infinitesimal is our knowledge of the region of which these small geologic reports are as yet our 

only authority, a section of country, following the general course of 

the stream, over twelve hundred miles in length.

The astronomic and topographic determinations of this survey were 

also very valuable and in general it is the most important and accurate addition to the cartography of Texas that has yet been made.

PACIFIC RAILROAD SURVEYS.

Another Government undertaking that followed closely upon Captain Marcy's exploration of Red River, and that was inaugurated while 

Major Emory's work upon the Rio Grande was still in progress, was the 

series of surveys across the region lying between the Mississippi River 

and the Pacific Ocean, commenced in the year 1853. Two of the lines 

crossed portions of the State of Texas.

The first of these surveys was conducted by Lieut. A. W. Whipple 

in 1852 and 1853 and is generally known as the thirty-fifth parallelsurvey.

The thirty-fifth parallel survey. This survey traversed that extreme 

northwestern portion of the State locally designated as the Panhandle 

(all of Texas north of Red River and west of the one hundredth meridian), 

a region differing much in its physical aspects from, the remainder of the 

State. The line traveled was approximately that of the Canadian River, 

and the results were a fair geographic section of the region and a contribution to the scientific knowledge of the Indian Territory, whereby 

some light was thrown upon the northern extension of the Texas formations.

Lieutenant Whipple, besides having a well equipped corps of topographic engineers, was accompanied by Mr. Jules Marcou, who as geologist took careful notes and collected many specimens. His observations were valuable, but his deductions involved American geologists 

of the time in a discussion that has not been settled to this day; for, 

while Mr. Marcou was said to be wrong in certain of his conclusions 

concerning the so-called Jurassic age of what is now generally accepted 

Cretaceous, he still possessed the advantage over his antagonists of 

being the only one who had visited the field. It is often a question in 

my mind whether Mr. Marcou's terms Jurassic and Neocomian, which 

ho applied to the Cretaceous of Western Texas, are not much nearer 

the truth than those of the writers who make that portion of the Texas

1 Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II, p. 49.

(403)
26 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [uuLL.45.

Cretaceous the equivalent of the upper members of the European series. 

He was one of the first practical geologists to visit this northwestern 

section of Texas. His observations were limited to that small portion 

of the State traversed by the Canadian Eiver, but they constitute the 

chief data concerning the region to which they pertain. It is much to 

be regretted that their usefulness was impaired by the misunderstanding that ensued between him and the Secretary of War. Before Mr. 

Marcou could write a final and complete report his notes were peremptorily demanded as he was departing for Europe, and later they were 

intrusted to Mr. W. P. Blake to write out. He published Mr. Marcou's 

field notes in full, although he failed in that interpretation which could . have been madoonlyby Mr. Marcou, and gave the world an opportunity 

to make its own deductions.

The results1- of the thirty-fifth parallel survey, although presenting 

many imperfections and marred by this unfortunate occurrence, were 

upon the whole a great addition to our knowledge of the Indian Territory and Northwest Texas regions.

The thirty-second parallel survey. Another survey across the State 

of Texas for the purpose of finding a suitable railway route to the Pacific was that conducted by Capt. John Pope along the thirty-second 

parallel in 1853. Practically the route was the same as the one traveled 

by Captain Marcy upon his return from JSTew Mexico, in 1848, a description of which has already been given (p. 24). The work of this exploring expedition, so far as it pertained to Texas, commenced at El Paso, 

in the western portion of the State, and progressed eastward. It approximately followed the thirty-second parallel to near the mouth of Delaware Creek, and thence passed slightly north of eastward to Preston, 

on Bed Eiver, a few-miles northwest of the site of the city of Deuisou. 

It crossed, en route, the Paleozoic strata of the trans-Pecos region, the 

Jura-Trias or gypsum bearing series, the typical Texas Cretaceous, the

Central Texas Coal Measures, the two belts of the cross timbers, and 

the Cretaceous to the east of the central Carboniferous exposures. The 

astronomic, topographic, and barometric measurements were important, 

but the geologic results were impaired by the fact that no trained geologist accompanied the expedition. The notes of the officers and the 

specimens gathered under Mr. Marcou's direction, however, were turned 

over to him by Captain Pope, and he wrote a brief general preliminary 

report upon them.2

1 Reports of exploratious aud surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, made under 

the direction of the Secretary of War in 1853-'54,-'55, according to the acts of Congress 

of March 3,1853, May 31,1854, and August 5, 1854. Volume III. Washington, 185G.

'Report of Secretary of War. House Document 129, Vol. 4, Chap. XIII, pp. 125-128. 

Geological notes of a survey of the country comprised between Preston, Red River, 

and El Paso, Rio Graude del Norte, in Report of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific 

Railroad near the Thirty-second Parallel of Latitude, from the Red River to the Rio 

Grande; By Bvt. Capt. John Pope, Corps of Topographical Engineers, 1855.

(404)
HiLi,.] ' STATE SURVEYS. 27 

The notes and specimens of this expedition were taken from Mr. 

Marcon, together with those of the thirty-fifth parallel survey, and 

hence lie was debarred from the privilege of writing the final report for 

the large quarto volumes that subsequently appeared.1 These contained 

a written report by Mr. W. P. Blake, which gave little additional knowledge.

AKTESIAN WELL EXPERIMENT.

The last exploration in Texas conducted by military officers under 

specific Government appropriations was that for the purpose of boring 

artesian Avells upon the plains, conducted by Capt. John Pope, in 1857 

f and 1858.2 This experiment yielded important geologic information, for 

accompanying the expedition as geologist was Dr. George G. Shumard, 

who collected much material and wrote an article on the local geology,3 

adding much to our knowledge of the trans-Pecos region, showing the

existence of the Carboniferous, the Cretaceous, and the gypsum bearing 

Mesozoics in that part of the State.

During this expedition Dr. G. G. Shumard collected the material that 

formed the ground work of Dr. B. P. Shumard's article upon "New 

fossils from the Permian strata of New Mexico and Texas." This 

paper first announced the existence of Permian strata in Texas. 4

This work practically ended United States explorations in Texas for 

the time. The State then exhibited a keen desire to explore its own 

geologic resources. In a few years the civil war drew the energies of 

our military forces to a more serious field and the posts along the Texas 

frontier were evacuated, and until the inauguration of work by the 

United States Geological Survey in the State no further contributions 

were made by United States explorers.

GEOLOGIC SURVEYS CONDUCTED BY THE STATE.

For the information contained in the following pages I am indebted 

to various persons. Much of ithasbeen cotnpiledfrorn the official reports

1 Reports of explorations aud surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Oceau. Made 

under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 1853-'54, according to acts of Congress 

of March 3, 1853, May 31,1854, and August 5,1854. Vol. II. Washington, 1855.

2 Artesian well experiment. Reports of Capt. John Pope, Top. Eng., to Capt. A. A. 

Humphreys, Top. Eug., iu charge of office of Exploration and Survey, War Department. To be found in Senate Ex. Doc., Thirty-fifth Congress, second session, 1858-'59, 

Vol. 2 (which is Report of the Secretary of War, J. B. Floyd, first part), pp. 582, 590- 

(508.

3 Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. I.

 Still little understood, but now considered either Permian or uppermost Carboniferous, being the latest of the latter age.

(405)
28 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [*»«".. 45.

of the several State geologists. A greater portion, however, has been 

kindly furnished by those familiar with the facts presented. 1

The burning of the archives by the capitol fire in 1881 has deprived 

me of what under ordinary circumstances would be the most useful 

source of information. 1

To some it is a matter of surprise that the State of Texas has not made 

a thorough geologic survey of its territory, especially since the State has 

always been comparatively free from financial embarrassment and owns 

the public lands within its borders, the value of which could not but 

have been enhanced by a scientific knowledge of their characteristics. 

A thorough study of the political history of the State will show, however, that a combination of untoward circumstances has invariably 

thwarted the effect of enactments looking toward such a survey.

Up to the time when the Anglo-American population extricated Texas 

from the Spanish-Mexican regime (1835) it had been under the non-progressive rule of the Middle Ages. The other States of the Union had 

previously attained a permanent form of government, allowing the public mind to follow intellectual and scientific pursuits with the greatest 

impetus during the first third of the nineteenth century. Amidst the 

throes of political organization scientific interests always flag. Time is 

required for the establishment of a stable government. While undergoing its political evolution, Texas had two wars with Mexico and a 

continual fight with hostile savages. Twenty years from the date of its 

separation from Mexican domination seems but a short period for the 

establishment of a geologic survey.

But a still greater obstacle to an early thorough survey of its domains 

was the fact that the population, even until the last decade, was confined to the eastern third of the State, and that until a dozen years ago 

the hostility of the Indians made observation in the vast unsettled region exceedingly dangerous. In 1849 Dr. Eoeraer said that Texas became interesting geologically at the points where civilization left off 

and where exploration was almost impossible. His remarks would have 

been equally applicable thirty years later.

Notwithstanding these obstacles, the State of Texas did establish by 

legislative enactment and appropriation what was intended to be a 

thorough topographic and geologic survey of its domains. This honorable design was defeated by the civil war and the petty jealousies of 

the scientific men to whom the State had intrusted the labor. The State 

made two earnest endeavors to secure a geologic survey of its domain 

and that such a survey has not been made is not due to its indifference.

Before describing these surveys and their results, it will be well to 

mention briefly the Texas land office, an institution whose functions 

have a distant; connection with scientific results.

l l am especially indebted to Prof. G. C. Broadhead, of Pleasant Hill,' Mo.; Mr. 

Friench Simpson, of Columbus, Tes.; Hou. A. D. Norton, of Dallas, Tex.; Mr. C. 

K. Lee, of Colorado, Tes.; Hon. J. G. Tracey, of Houston, Tes., and Mr. N. A. Taylor, of Abilene, Tex.

(406)
HILL.] ' STATE SURVEYS. 29 

THE TEXAS LAND OFFICE.

The Eepublic of Texas, having in its possession a large unsettled domain, found it necessary, as one of the first acts of its existence, to 

establish some method of administering the duties incident to the survey and the disposition of the land. By act of December 22,1836, a 

land office was opened at the capital in February, 1838, under the control 

of a salaried commissioner.

The functions of this office were to preserve a record of surveys, to 

issue warrants for land, and to prevent error or fraud in their location. 

The Republic of Texas followed the Spanish method of granting lands, 1 

by which the State incurred no expense of survey in their location. Instead of making topographic surveys of the public lands and dividing them according to the township system of the United States land 

surveys, the State issued scrip for a designated number of acres to bo 

located upon any portion of the territory found vacant, The person

locating the land employed a surveyor (oftentimes of inadequate skill), 

who ran the lines of the location and sent in field notes of his survey to 

Austin. By this method the State obtained very unsatisfactory information of these surveys. By the township system, on the other hand, 

at least a correct map of the main topographic features would have 

been secured. The land office of the State published several maps of 

Texas, but they were chargeable with incorrectness. Dr. B. F. Shumard 

said : " The maps in the land office at Austin are more or less imperfect and the surveys in some instances exceedingly erroneous;" 2 yet 

these maps w^ere the only contributions of the State land office to a 

scientific knowledge of Texas. Their value is of a doubtful if not of a 

negative character. The commissioners have made regular reports to 

each legislative body. A few of these have been printed, but they 

contain nothing of scientific value. The whole series of reports can be 

found only in the land office at Austin.

. FIRST GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (SHUMARD).'

By act of the 10th of February, 1858, the legislature of the State of 

Texas authorized a geological and agricultural survey of the State. 

It was made the duty of the State geologist to make as speedily as possible " a thorough and complete geological survey of the State, so as 

to determine accurately the quality and characteristics of the soil and 

its adaptation to agricultural purposes; the species of produce to 

which the soil in different sections is adapted; its mineral resources, 

their location and the best means for their development; its water 

powers, their location and capacities; and generally everything relating 

to the geological and agricultural character of the State."3

1 Seo p. 12.

2 First Report of Progress of the Geological aud Agricultural Survey of Texas, by 

B. F. Shumard, State Geologist, pp. 8, 9.

3 Ibid., p. 5.

(407)
30 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [HULL.45.

To fill the office of State geologist, which was created by the same 

act, Governor H. R. Runnels, on the 28th day of August, 1858, appointed Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard. 1 This gentleman's life of scientific 

training and his experience in geologic surveys gave him. every qualification for the position.2

Organisation and equipment. His first act3 was to select from the 

works of the best instrument makers a set of chemical and physical apparatus for the equipment of analytical laboratories at Austin and of 

meteorologic stations at one or two other points. Since the cllmatologic and meteorologic conditions existing in. the State of Texas are 

important factors in the geologic effects, the wisdom of Dr. Shumard's 

endeavors to study these phenomena will be apparent.

He organized his staff of assistants as follows: Assistant geologist, 

Dr. George G. Shumard; chemist and assistant geologist, Prof. W. 

P. Riddell; topographer, Mr. A. R. Ro'essler; meteorologists, Prof. 

Caleb G. Forshey, at Rutersville, and Swante Palm, esq., at Austin.

The qualifications of all these gentlemen were considered the best for 

their day and time. Dr. George G. Shumard possessed the largeststore 

of, scientific information, especially concerning the western portion of 

the State, having accompanied Captains Marcy and Pope as a geologist 

in their numerous explorations.

Professor Riddell, besides being an able chemist, was especially well 

informed respecting the structure of the settled portion of the country.

Mr. Rocssler, although a young man, possessed a good scientific education, was a hard worker, and to him is due much of the accurate topographic knowledge of the State we possess at the present day.

The meteorologic stations were established in accordance with the 

plan adopted by the Smithsonian Institution.

Meld labors. The geologic corps proper was divided into field parties, and in January, 1859, these entered upon.their duties. The first 

of them, under Dr. George G. Shumard, constructed an accurate section of the country between Austin and the Red River in Grayson 

County. Dr. Shumard also made "thorough and final surveys" of the 

counties of Grayson, Fannin, and Cass, and partial surveys of Bowie, 

Red River, and Lainar Counties. In addition to this work, he made a

1 There is a tradition, with some ground for belief, that Governor Runnels intended 

to appoint Dr. G. G. Shumard to the office of State geologist, but, by a clerical error, 

the namo of his brother, Dr. B. F. Shmnard, was inserted in the original commission. 

This being before the days of rapid communication it was impossible to remedy the 

error, and Dr. G. G. Shumard gracefully accepted the position of assistant State geologist.

2 For a sketch of Dr. Shumard's qualifications, see Texas Almanac for 1859.

3 The following account of the operations of the survey is principally based upon 

the First Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by B. 

F. Shumard, Austin, 1859.

(408)
HILL.] FIRST GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY. . 31

careful exploration of Bed Biver from Cooke County to the Louisiana 

boundary.1 . 

Professor Biddell made final surveys of the counties of Caldwell and 

Guadalupe, south of Austin, the State capital, and of McLennan and 

Coryell, near the geographic center of the State j also of the greater 

part of Bosque County.

Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard, the head of the survey, made detailed 

surveys of Burnet and Bush and partial surveys of Travis, Bastrop, 

Washington, Fayette, and Young Counties. He also made a series of 

reconnaissances. Dr. Shumard in his report2 said;

It Avill ho seen that besides a general survey extending over a large portion of the 

eastern and middle portions of the State, wo have made minute and final surveys of 

eleven counties. Two are nearly finished and a number partially surveyed.

Methods of survey. From, the report cited we extract the following: 

In making these preliminary surveys careful sections of the strata have been made at

all points of outcrop within reasonable distances of the route traveled, and the thickness, stratigraphical order, dip, and mineral and fossil characters of the various beds 

have been determined with as much precision as possible. * * * In some counties 

sections of the strata have been measured at more than ono hundred and fifty localities-

* * * We made frequent barometrical observations to ascertain the elevation of the 

country above tide-water, and much attention has been directed to obtaining a correct, 

knowledge of the topographical features.

Wo have also determined, with as much accuracy as possible, the amount and quality 

of timber in each county, proportion of timber and prairie, elevation of hills, depth 

and width of valleys, and the amount of available water power furnished by the 

streams.

A largo share of attention has also been devoted to tho agricultural capabilities 

of these counties. The different varieties of soils and subsoils have been carefully 

examined, numerous specimens have been collected for future study and analysis, and

 we have spared no pains to ascertain the most advantageous methods of cultivating 

and improving them.

Particular search has been made for minerals of economical importance, and all 

mines, whether of prospective or known value, have been examined with special care 

and the probable amount, richness, and quality of the ores determined. Samples of 

ores and their accompanying minerals, coals, limestones, marbles, clays, mineral 

waters, &c., have been collected, arid are now deposited in the laboratory at Austin, 

for chemical analysis and final preservation in the State cabinet. 3

1 Since this work was prepared for the press the notes of Dr. G. G. Sbumard have been 

collected and published by the State of Texas in a volume entitled "A Partial Report of tho Geology of Western Texas, consisting of a General Geological Report and 

a Journal of Geological Observations along the Routes traveled by tho Expedition 

between Indianola, Tex., and tho Valley of tho Mimbres, Now Mexico, during the 

years 1855 and 1856; with an Appendix giving a detailed Report of tho Geology of 

Graysou County. By Prof. George G. Shumard, assistant State geologist of Texas. 

Austin, State Printing Office, 1886." 8°, pp. vii, 145, with illustrations.

2 First Report of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by 13. 

F. Shumard, State geologist, p. 8.

3 Ibid., p. 8.

(409)
32 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

Of the fossils, Dr. Shumard remarked that the collection was "especially large and valuable, and, it is believed, when carefully studied 

will throw considerable light on some disputed points of the geology 

of the West and Southwest."

Maps. On the subject of maps Dr. Shumard said:

Our county maps will embrace the areas occupied by the different geological formations, localities of workable mines, ore deposits, coals, lignites, marble and stone quarries, medicinal and other springs, furnaces, towns, post offices, churches, saw and grist 

mills, and boundaries of timber and prairie. This portion of our labor has often been 

attended with considerable difficulty, arising from the fact that the maps in the land 

office at Austin are more or less imperfect and the surveys in some instances exceedingly erroneous. Ifc has been sometimes almost impossible to locate our observations 

with that degree of minuteness and precision which was thought desirable, bub we 

have spared no exertions to remedy defects, supply omissious, and to make our maps 

as complete as possible in their geographical as Avell as in their geological details.

Such is a brief account of the first year's operation of the geological 

and agricultural survey of Texas, as stated by its director in his first 

annual report of progress. It is obvious that Dr. Shumard had accomplished much during this brief time and that the plans of organization 

and operation were such as to result in the accomplishment of one of the 

most valuable State surveys, could they have been carried out.

Operations of 1860. After a brief winder's work in quarters at Austin, the Survey resumed the field in 1860. The records of the year's 

work are meager, for a series of misfortunes occurred by which the results of the survey, excepting a few fragments to be hereafter noted, 

were lost to science, and a blow was inflicted upon State encouragement 

of scientific investigations from which the State has not yet recovered.

The personnel of the scientific corps remained unchanged, except that 

at the beginning of the year Dr. Shumard employed as a collector of 

plants a young man, S. B. Buckley, who became a prominent figure in 

the subsequent history of the surveys.

From Mr. Buckley we have the only published account of the survey's operations during the year,1 of which he speaks as follows :

In January, 1860, I was also employed as an assistant by Dr. Shumard, I having 

charge of the botanical department, also making geological observations.

In May, 1860, Drs. Shumard, Riddcll, and myself went, via San Antonio, to Corpus 

Christi, returning by the way of Goliad and Lockhart to Austin. About the 1st of 

June we started for the survey of Navarro County, which was finished about the 1st of 

July; then wo removed, spending the month of July in the survey of Washington 

County. The month of August was employed in the examination of Bastrop County. 

Thence returning to Austin, we went into San Saba, remaining there until November.

Dr. George G. Shumard spent the summer in Northern Texas, in Grayson, Lamar, 

Faunin, and other counties on the Red River. Ho returned to Austin in September.

During the summer Dr. B. F. Shumard had been a hirge portion of the time at 

Austin, leaving Dr. Riddell and myself in the field. At Austin he was closely watched 

by Governor Houston, who, being convinced that Dr. Shumard was not a suitable 

person for a State geologist, removed him about the 1st of November, I860.

1 First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by S. B. 

Buckley, A. M., Ph. D., State geologist, Houston, 1874, p. 8.

(410)
HILI,.] FIRST GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 33

On the same page from which the above is quoted and on the following one Dr. Buckley shows very plainly the spirit in which he served his 

chief. He says: 0

Returning in January, we found Dr. Shumard still at Austin, occupy ing his former 

room at the geological department. Dr. Moore thought it rather strange that Shumard had not vacated the office. In excuse, Dr. Shumard assured Dr. Moore that lie 

would do nothing which would injure the interests of Dr. Moore, and that he only 

wished to arrange his business and start for the North. Thus assured, we started for 

Llano County, but on our route Dr. Moore, thinking that all might not go right at Austin, where the [secession] convention of 1861 was then in session, requested me to return 

and arrange specimens, and watch Dr. Shuraard, with whom I was then on friendly 

terms. Soon after my arrival at Austin a friend informed me that Dr. Shumard was 

busily engaged in persuading the members of the convention to .displace Dr. Moore 

and reinstate him in office again, and that, too, with every prospect of success. To 

thwart thisj I drew up some charges against Dr. Shumard and placed them in the 

hands of Governor Houston, who showed them to some of the leading members of the 

convention*, and nothing further was done in favor of Dr. Shumard, who soon after 

loft for St. Louis, vowing vengeance, saying that he would break down Eiy scientific 

reputation.

Mr. Eoessler says:

Aside, however, from Mr. Bnckley's own acknowledgment of his motive in drawing up these charges, he shows his maliciousness and willful intention, if possible, to 

suppress the truth by neglecting to state that when these charges wore presented the 

legislature of Texas, in its session of 1860-'61, appointed a committee for their investigation, of which Mr. Waelder was chairman. He also neglects to state that Dr. Shnmard courted an investigation and voluntarily and promptly appeared before the 

committee appointed, and that the utter falseness of the charges was proved by such 

well known gentlemen as Professor Forshey, Senator Russell, and Colonel Timinons. 1

A State election had occurred in the fall of 1859, and after much bitterness on both sides Governor Eunnells, the democratic incumbent and 

the patron of the survey, was succeeded by Gen. Sam. Houston, independent, who, under the influence of political and personal effort brought 

to bear for that end, removed Dr. Shumard, after an administration of 

twenty-six months.2 Dr. Shumard left the State at the outbreak of the 

war, during which most of his notes, collections, and maps were lost or 

destroyed, and made his home at St. Louis, where he died in I860,3 haviug had no opportunity to publish an official report, but having contributed to our knowledge of the geology of Texas by his fragmentary pub1 Reply to the charges made by S. B. Buckley, State geologist of Texas, in his official report of 1874, against Dr. B. F. Shumard and A. R. Roessler, p. 7.

a Dr. Shumard was reinstated by the legislature, in April, 1861, to prepare his final 

report, which was never published.

3 For the biographical data concerning Dr. Shumard in this paper we are indebted 

to the sketch in the Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. XLVIII, pp. 294-296; to A. R. 

Roessler's reply to S. B. Buckley; and to Prof. G. C. Broadhead and others.

Dr. B. F. Shumard was born at Lancaster, Pa., November 24, 1820. His father 

afterwards removed to Cincianati, and while he was living there Dr. Shumard graduated at Oxford, Ohio ; returning to Philadelphia, ho went through one course in the 

medical college of that city. His father then removed to Louisville, Ky., where young 

Shumard completed his medical studies, in 1846. He then practiced medicine in one of 

the interior towns of Kentucky. Here he developed his taste for paleontologic investigation, and after a few mouthy' country practice he removed to Louisville. In this 

Bull, 45^-^3 (411)
34 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

lications, of which we shall speak more definitely hereafter. The survey as carried on under his immediate successors may, for convenience, 

still be called-the Shumard survey, as it was an attempt to continue his 

work rather than to inaugurate any new system of work or of organization.

Immediately upon the removal of Dr. Shumard, November, 1860, the 

governor appointed Dr. Francis M. Moore State geologist. He was an 

honorable and cultured gentleman, of much executive ability. For 

many years he had been the editor of The Houston Daily Telegram, 

then the leading newspaper of the State. It was owing to his public 

spirited and intelligent advocacy of its necessity that the survey was 

originally established.

According to Dr. Buckley1 he himself was appointed first assistant State geologist; Dr. Kiddell, who had been assistant State geologist and chemist, was retained as chemist; and Mr. Eoessler was

city he became associated in scientific and professional pursuits with Dr. L. P. Yandell, and together they devoted much of their leisure to tbe study of geology and paleontology. Several valuable paleontologic contributions were published under their 

joint authorship. Dr. Shumard was an earnest and careful collector, and his cabinet 

at Louisville was visited by many distinguished foreigners.

Dr. Shumard's geologic talent was not long in receiving recognition. He was appointed by Dr. David Dale Owen as assistant geologist in the geological survey of 

Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Avhich was inaugurated in 1846 by authority ot 

Congress.

Dr. Shumard was busily engaged in the field during 1848 and 1849 as the head of 

one of the divisions of the survey. Many of the most valuable reports upon the geology and paleontology of this survey, from his pen, "remain monuments to the industry, acquirements, and ability of their author."

Besides his share in the publication of these reports, Dr. Shumard, about the same 

time, published a valuable monograph, entitled Contributions to the Geology of Kentucky. In the work of the Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota survey he was associated 

with many men who have since become eminent in the annals of North American 

geology, including F. B. Meek, Dr. J. Evans, Prof. A. Litton, and others.

In 1853 Dr. Shumard removed to St. Louis and was appointed assistant geologist 

and paleontologist of the Missouri geological survey under Professor Swallow. Ho 

labored here until the summer of 1858, when he was appointed State geologist of 

Texas. He arrived at Austin on October 30 of the same year and initiated the work 

of a survey upon a broad and comprehensive plan.

At the beginning of the war the doctor returned to St. Louis. He was obliged to 

leave a large part of his collections and library at Austin through the war. He again 

took up the practice of medicine, which he continued to the year of his death.

He had been in a declining state of health for about a year, having suffered from 

hemorrhage of the lungs, when his death occurred, April 14,1869.

In St. Louis Dr. Shumard had the intellectual and social companionship of that small 

coterie of western scientists who made that place a scientific center for many years.

As a paleontologist he held a high rank. He was president and one of the organizers of the Academy of Science of St. Louis and a member of many other similar societies at home and abroad.

He was a man of science in the highest sense of the word and devoted himself entirely to its pursuits; in the prosecution of it he contributed more, perhaps, than any 

other man to the revelation of the immense resources of the Mississippi Valley.

1 First Annual Keport of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, p. 8.

(412)
HILL.] FIRST GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 35

retained as draftsman. In December, 1860, Drs. Moore and Buckley 1 

made a short reconnaissance through the southern counties of the State, 

and in March they made a tour through Western Texas, during which 

trip the survey was suspended. The resolution suspending the survey 

is as follows:

Be it resolved: (1) That the geological survey be suspended, with the exception of the 

State geologist and chemist, who shall continue in the survey only so long as it may 

be necessary to make out the report herein after provided for.

(2) That B. F. Shumard, the State geologist, be requested to make a report of his 

survey so far as the survey has been completed, and for that purpose shall have control over the cabinet and rooms and his notes and the services of the chemist, and ho 

shall receive a like salary heretofore paid the State geologist until the work be completed: Provided, Said report shall be made by the 1st of July next; which compensation shall be paid out of the appropriations heretofore made for the support of the 

geological bureau.

(3) That Dr. Francis Moore, present State geologist, be requested to make out a report of the work executed up to the present time.

Approved, April 8, 1861.

What was done towards complying with this act cannot be ascertained. It is certain that no reports were published and apparently 

the agitation of the civil war prevented further work. The act seems 

to imply an official justification of Dr. Shumard, which is not mentioned in any of Dr. Buckley's sketches of the history of the surveys.

The civil war had now broken out and Dr. Moore left for the North 

in July, 1861, and in 1864 died in Northern Michigan, while in the employ of a mining company.

Duriag the war the State capitol was occupied by troops and the 

laboratories and the museum of the survey were converted into a manufactory of percussion caps. The magnificent specimens were taken 

away as curiosities or wantonly destroyed and many of the precious 

notes and maps were scattered to the winds,

At the opening of the war Dr. Buckley also left the South, taking 

with him, as has been charged by Mr. Roessler,2 the notes of the survey. 

At the close of the conflict he returned to Austin, assumed charge of 

the collections and effects of the survey, and secured the passage of 

a joint resolution repealing the act of April 8,3861. by which the survey 

had been suspended. He was appointed by Governor Throckmorton, 

in November, 1866, to take charge of the survey, notwithstanding the 

protests of Dr. B. F. Shuinard,3 Mr. Eoessler, and others, previously of

1 First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by S. B. 

Buckley, p. 8.

2 Reply to the charges made by S. B. Buckley, State geologist of Texas, in his official 

report of 1874, against B. F. Shumard and A. R. Roessler, p. 10.

3 In a letter to Swante Palm, esq., under date of August 11, 1866, Dr. Shumard thus 

characterizes Mr. Buckley's standing in his service : " In the same article he claims 

that he was connected with me in the geological survey. Now, he came to me ragged 

and penniless, and I employed him to collect plants at one dollar per day, giving him 

precisely the same wages I was giving my teamsters and cooks. All the geology he 

knows I taught him, and that was precious little."

(413)
36 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. BULL. 45.1

the survey. The unfinished report of Dr. Shumard, which the legislature in 1SG1 had given to Dr. Moore to complete, now fell to his charge 

so far as materials remained. Dr. Buckley put forth in 1866 a work 

entitled A Preliminary Keport of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas. In a prefatory note he speaks of the book as the report 

of work done under the supervision of Dr. Moore, adding that his connection with the survey had been longer than Dr. Moore's and that all 

the knowledge obtained by service under Dr. Shumard which promises 

to have any public value is embodied in its pages. The book contains 

92 octavo pages, including title and index, and a large proportion of 

these pages, is occupied with general statements as to agricultural oper 

ations and the whole is of little scientific value. In the words of Mr. 

A. E. Eoessler: l

It does not contain the analysis of either soils or minerals or the delineation of a 

single fossil, geological section, or anything else in that direction. In fact there is 

nothing new in it, the whole report being a poor rehash of articles published in the 

Texas Almanac and other periodicals.

In 1867 the political winds blew out the administration that upheld 

Dr. Buckley before he printed any further report. Under military rule 

and changes that ensued was swept away the last remnant of the original 

geological survey of Texas as inaugurated by Dr. Shumard nine years 

before, except a few disordered specimens, which were completely destroyed by the capitol fire in 1881.

Official results. The destruction of records by the capitol fire leaves 

no opportunity to gather official information as to what was accomplished by the survey, but from unofficial sources I have endeavored to 

make up as accurate and complete a statement as possible.

There were two direct publications of the survey. The first was the 

First Keport of Progress of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of

Texas, .by B. F. Shumard, State geologist, It was a pamphlet of 17

pages, of which 1,700 copies were printed for distribution. It may be 

found in the libraries of the National Museum and the U. S. Geological 

Survey at Washington. The second official publication was A Preliminary Eeport of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, 

by S. B. Buckley, 1866, already described.

Indirect results. Although the State published so little concerning 

the geological investigations of the Shumard survey, the scientific men 

who were attached to it made known useful data concerning the geology, 

topography, and paleontology of the State. Dr. Shumard described 

many new species and contributed much to the stratigraphic knowledge of the State. His publications, based upon material gathered 

and observations made while connected with the State survey, are as 

follows:

1 Reply to the charges made by S. B. Buckley, p. 11. 

(414)
HILL.J FIRST GEOLOGICAL

"Observations upon the Cretaceous strata of Texas,^ Acad.Sci. Saint Louie, Vol. 

I, pp. 582-590, 1860.

"Descriptions of new Cretaceous fossils from Texas," Trans. Acad. Sci. Saint Louis, 

Vol.1, pp. 590-610, with figures, 1960, published by Dr. C. A. White in his Contributions to Paleontology, No. 1, Eleventh Annual Kep. U. S. Geological (Hayden) Survey.

"Descriptions of five new species of Gasteropoda from the Coal Measures, and a 

Brachiopod from the Potsdam Sandstone of Texas," Trans. Acad. Sci. Saint Louis, 

Vol. I, pp. 624-627,1851.

"State House artesian well at Austin," Texas Almanac, pp.161, 162, 1860; gives 

valuable geological section.

" Geological survey of Texas," Texas Almanac, pp. 199, 200, 1860, Galveston, 1859.

"The Primordial zone of Texas, with descriptions of new fossils," Am. Jour. Sci., 

2d ser., Vol. XXXII, pp. 213-321, 1861.

 'Descriptions of new Cretaceous fossils from Texas," Proc. Boston Soc.Nat.Hist., 

Vol. VIII, pp. 188-205,1861-1862.

 "Observations on the Cretaceous strata of Texas," Texas Almanac, pp. 203-205,1861.

Extract from a letter to the corresponding secretary of the Academy of Science of 

Saint Louis, read November 5, I860; mentions the discovery of dicotyledonous leaves 

in the Cretaceous strata of Red River, Trans. Acad. Sci. Saint Louis, Vol. II, pp. 140, 141.

"Descriptions of now Paleozoic fossils," Trans. Acad. Sci. Saint Lpuis, Vol. II, pp. 

108-113, 1862; describes Goniatites Texanus, a new Carboniferous fossil from the bluffs 

of Wallace Creek, San Saba County, Texas.

Communication to the Academy of Science of Saint Louis, March, 1861, announcing 

the apparent discovery of the Eipley group of the Cretaceous in Texas, Trans. Acad. 

Sci. Saint Louis, Vol. II, p. 152.

At the time of his death Dr. Shumard had in his possession many 

valuable notes and unpublished manuscripts concerning the geology 

and paleontology of Texas that would, no doubt, throw much light upon 

some of the important points concerning that region. Dr. 0. A. White 

has published illustrations of some of the species1 he described without 

figures, and this will probably be done in the case of others of his unfigured specimens as soon as duplicates can be collected and identified. 

The notes and manuscripts, however, should not be lost to science, and 

it is hoped that some friend of the deceased will produce them ultimately for publication.

Mr. Eoessler, the topographer of the survey, has published several 

valuable maps, among them a large topographic map of the State, 

printed in 1874, embodying the plans set forth by Dr. Shumard in his 

report of progress.

The final remnant of the collections remained for many years in the 

capitol building at Austin, until the burning of that structure in 1881 

completely destroyed the last trace of them.

Expense. It is impossible to ascertain the exact cost of the Shumard 

survey to the State of Texas from the date of its inception, November, 

1848, until the publication of Dr. Buckley's report in 1866. Dr. Buckley 

states that Dr. Shumard expended $28,000 during the twenty-six months 

of Ms administration, which was $8,000 in excess of the appropriation.

1 Contributions to Invertebrate Paleontology No. 2. Twelfth Annual Report U. S. 

Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. F. V. Haydeu, U. S. Geologist. 

Part I, Geology, Paleontology, and Zoology. See pp. 22, IW, 39.

(415)
KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TE^AS. [BULL. is.

The following items of expenditure are mainly compiled from Dr. 

Shumard's First Report of Progress, pp. 16, 17. They represent the 

disbursements of the first fourteen months of his administration :

Salaries: Chief geologist, at $3,000; two assistant geologists, at $1,500 

each; topographer, at $600; various subordinates: aggregating........ $7,195 71

Equipment (including fitting up of office, apparatus, laboratories, stables, 

purchase of teams, camp equipment, &c.).............................. 4,947 62

Traveling and transportation expenses................................... 2,845 96

Office expenses.......................................................... 83 71

Total expenditure................................................. 15,073 00

Deduct cost of equipment ......................................... 4,947 62

Actual running expense for fourteen mouths....................... 10,125 38

The expense of the continuation of the survey under the four mouths 

of Dr. Moore's administration cannot be obtained. Based upon the 

cost of Dr. Shumard's for a similar time they could not have exceeded 

$4,000, for it must be remembered that retrenchment was the watchword 

under which he was appointed to the directorship.

The cost of Dr. Buckley's administration for one year could not have 

exceeded $4,000, as he had no assistants and the State was only at the 

expense of his salary and the cost of publishing his pamphlet. It may 

be fairly estimated that the total expense of this survey to the State was 

less than $25,000.

THE SECOND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (GLENN-BUCKLEY).

Since the disastrous end of the Shumard survey in 1867 little work of 

positive scientific value has been done by the State of Texas. When the 

immediate effects of the civil war had passed, away arid the political 

excitement of the reconstruction period had subsided, the expediency of 

reorganizing the State survey was again broached.

To distinguish it from the Shumard survey, described in the previous 

pages, this new organization may be called the second geological survey 

or the Glenn-Buckley survey. It accomplished even less than the first 

one.

By legislative enactment, approved August 13,1870, the governor 

was authorized to appoint a State geologist, with the consent of the 

senate, the incumbent to give security in the sum of $5,000. The State 

geologist was to appoint two assistants, one of whom was to be an expert 

chemist and mineralogist. The duties of the survey were to make a descriptive survey of the State, and an agricultural, geologic, and mincralogic examination and classification of rocks, soils, minerals, mineral 

waters, fossils, &c. Koorns were to be provided by the governor for the 

deposit and arrangement of specimens by the geologist. A report of 

progress was to be made to the governor at each regular session of the legislature. The salary of the principal geologist was to be $3,000; of the 

principal assistants, each, $1,800, traveling and incidental expenses to

(416)
MU.J SECOND £#OtO(HCAL SURVEY"; 33

be paid by the State. Appointees were required to take an oath of office^ 

agreeing not to purchase, with the view of speculation, any landed or 

mining interest in the State during their term of office and not to conceal any information relative to any discovery &c. The governor was 

authorized to offer for sale the reports, when published, to citizens of 

the State, at a cost not to exceed that of publication, proceeds to be 

placed to the credit of the common school fund. The State geologist 

was allowed fifty copies for distribution to scientific men and the assistants twenty copies each. The governor was empowered to remove for 

neglect or malfeasance in office. All former laws were repealed.

Early in 1873 Governor Edmund J. Davis appointed John W. Glenu 

State geologist. In November he took the field, with Charles E. Hall 

as first assistant, and went into Burnet, Llano, and San Saba Counties, l 

returning to Austin in January, 1874, and soon afterwards he resigned. 

In view of the destruction of the archives it is satisfactory to have Mr.

Glenn's direct statement regarding his connection with the survey, 

kindly furnished in reply to a request for it, and not without value in 

its bearing upon the work of others in the same field.

LETTER OF MR. J. W. GLENN.

-t"

NEW ORLEANS, LA., August 7, 1886.

DEAR SIR: Reply to your letter has been delayed until now from necessity of referring to the comptroller of Texas for some details of expenditures which I Lad forgotten.

I reply to your interrogatories in their order, viz :

1. I was State geologist for Texas from March 31, 1873, to March G, 1874, when I 

resigned.

2. The expenses of my administration for that time were $3,637.34.

3. I had no predecessor; my successor was S. B. Buckley.

4. Mr. Rossiter was never State geologist. Otie A. B. (or A. R.) RoessJer was a 

draftsman in the geological department in 1861 under Dr. Sbumard. He was also 

employed in printing and distributing circulars &c. in 1875 and 10,000 copies of 

Texas maps in 1875.

A geological survey of Texas was authorized hy law and prosecuted to some extent 

under Dr. Shumard, hut was hrought to an ahrupt ending in 1861 hy the war. Nothing further was done until 1873, when I was appointed under a law just then passed, 

which law contemplated a complete work.

The disorders of the time and want of proper appreciation of the importance of geological work on the part of the public caused me to resigu, and S. B. Buckley, who in 

18(51 was an employe" of Dr. Shumard in the division of botany, was appointed my 

successor. His official existence was brief and barren of scientific results. I have 

always regarded R'oemer's report on the Cretaceous in Texas with favor, and have 

found that Dr. Shumard's reports, so far as they were published, agree in the main with 

my examinations; and Roemer and Shumard may be considered as the sole authorities on the geology of Texas up to 1873, unless we add to them part of the United 

States boundary report.

No publication was made of any of my reports. Before I assumed the duties of 

State geologist I was familiar with the area and outlines of the coast formations,

'First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by S. B. 

Buckley, p. 13.

(417)
40 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL.45.

Tertiary, Cretaceous, and the Carboniferous, iu the northern part of Texas. My first 

work was to establish a base line which would include ontcroppings of the known 

formations. As established, this line began in Blanco County, iu the Cretaceous, 

thence northward until it encountered the Cretaceous again overlying the Carboniferous in the north part of the State.

Between these two ends of the base lino, beginn ing at the south end, it passed 

through the following formations iu the order as stated, viz: Cretaceous, Carboniferous, Upper Silurian, Lower Silurian, Azoic, Lower Silurian, Upper Silurian, Carboniferous, Cretaceous.

The result was one of the most interesting I ever accomplished. Every square mile 

of the territory surveyed was carefully platted on the map and defined in the field, 

and each one numbered and worked over with great care, and the collections taken 

from each bore its number and from what part each came. Probably the most valuable part of my work, from an economic stand, if the report of it had only been promulgated in print, was my report on the wild sumach of Texas (E. copallina), from* 

detailed analyses extending through the entire growth and determining the period of 

greatest economic value iu tannic acid.

These analyses were made by Mr. George H. Katteyer, in the most elaborate and 

painstaking way, and included an amount of exact information which, owing to the 

vast growth of wild sninach in Texas, would have proved of immense value to her 

people in that new industry.

The paleontology of Texas is to me more interesting than that of any other part of 

the country, especially in the Carboniferous and Lower Silurian formations.

I believe I have replied substantially to all of your inqui ries. If not, and you will 

indicate where, I will gladly supply the omission.

Respectfully, JOHN W. GLENN.

ROBERT T. HILL,

Assistant Paleontologist, U. S. G. S., Washington, D. C.

OPERATIONS OF 1874.

In March, 1874, Governor Kichard Coke appointed Dr. S. B. Buckley 

State geologist. Dr. Buckley appointed Prof. Kichard Burleson assistant geologist,Charles B. Hall subassistant, JainesE.Hornbook-keeper 

and commissary, having Friencli Simp son and Jack Coke as volunteer 

assistants without wages, Field work was begun May 11, and William

D.Carriugton, Ed. Shands, and a cook were of the party. Dr. Buckley 

says of his summer's work:

Our trip during the summer has only been a general reconnaissance or partial survey of the following counties. [Here follow the names of forty-five counties.]

No detailed surveys have been made, the object being merely to ascertain the leading geological, mineralogical, and agricultural features of the counties visited as a 

guide to future examinations and aid to the capitalist and immigrant. 1

Although during a part of the time Professor Burleson traveled with 

a subparty over a separate route, it is clear that in c6vering such a 

scope of country the field work consisted of little more than a jaunt in 

an ambulance, rarely deviating from the main road.2

The parties traveled rapidly from day to d ay, gathering fossil and mineral curiosities and noting extravagant stories of agricultural possi1 First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by S. B. 

Buckley, p. 16.

2 See The Coming Empire, or Two Thousand Miles in Texas on Horseback, by H. F. 

McDaniels and N. A. Taylor, New York, A. S. Barnes & Co., 1878, p. 315.

(418)
SILL.] SECOND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 41

bilities by farmers aloug their routes. Xo stratigraphic or topographic 

work was done, nor were any barometric or other measurements made. 

From the first annual report of the survey, already cited, some localities 

can be identified, but its Ii2 octavo pages are essentially devoid of scientific interest. No office or laboratory work was reported.

The expenses of the half year from May 1 to November 1 are given as 

follows:

Camp outfit......................--.....-..-.....-.........--....------- $1,508 50

Field expenses .-.............-.........-..-...---.. .---....-..-----.---. 871 15

Help ...................................................................750 00

Total 1 .....-.........--...-....----......-......-....----..-.-.--- 3,129 65

From. Mr. Friench Simpsou, of Columbus, Tex., one of the gentlemen 

who accompanied Dr. Buckley as a volunteer assistant, I have received 

the following detailed account of the appropriations and expenditures 

of the survey for the first year of its existence:

Total amount of appropriation .......................................... $7,250 00

Salary of geologist............................................ $3,000 00

Office and chemical supplies ................................... 300 00

Wood ........................................................ 50 00

Books and instruments........................................ 200 00

Traveling expenses............................................ 2,700 00

Total expenditures.......... ............................ 6,250 00

 6,250 00

Returned to treasury..................................................... 1,000 00

OPERATIONS OF 1875.

The work of 1875 2 was in continuance of the plan adopted the preceding year of ascertaining, by a general reconnaissance of the State, 

its main geologic and agricultural features.

The observations for this year were mostly made in the region west 

of the Colorado Elver and north of latitude 29°. These observations 

were of the same general character as those of the preceding year, except 

that a barometer was introduced into the survey and a few altitudes 

were recorded.

For an account of the expenses of this year we are again indebted to 

Mr. Simpsou. They were as follows:

Salary of tlie geologist.................................................. $3,000 00

Office and chemicals .................1.................................. 500 00

Traveling expenses...................................................... 2,000 00

Postage ................................................................ 200 00

Fuel..............................................................'...... 50 00

Total expenses.................................................... 5,750 00

1 First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, by S. B. 

Buckley, p. 119.

3 Second Annual Report of the Geological aad Agricultural Survey of Texas, l»y S. 

B. Buckley, A. M., Ph. D., State geologist, Houston, 1876, p. 5.

(419)
42 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OE TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

At tlie end of the fiscal year Governor Richard Coke, who had him - 

self appointed Dr. Buckley, being convinced that the geological survey 

as conducted was of no value to the State, vetoed the annual appropriation, thus terminating the survey. The two reports cited contain all the 

contributions made, to iny knowledge, by the reorganized survey, and 

the State has done no work of the kind since.

RECENT MISCELLANEOUS INVESTIGATIONS.

Some additions to the geologic knowledge of Texas have been made 

by individual contributors.

Most of the papers contributed were only semi-scientific, written with 

a view to furnishing popular descriptions of the region. Many of them 

are now lost, owing to the destruction of the obscure mediums in which 

they were published.

INDIVIDUAL CONTEIBUTORS.

Previous to the civil war several gentlemen, residents of the State, 

contributed articles to the southern press upon these questions.

Professor Caleb G. Forshey and George Willcins Kendall were among 

them. To secure a complete list of their writings would now be impossible, but many of them are still extant in the almost inaccessible files of 

New Orleans and Texas papers and in De Bow's Commercial Eeview.

Since the civil war not many residents of the State have contributed 

to its geologic literature. There have been one or two gentlemen, however, who have been interested in the geology of their State.

N. A. Taylor has contributed many articles to the press of the State, 

us well as written a book that contains valuable data concerning the 

geologic features of Texas. While his works are lacking in the exactness of detail that is necessary in scientific matter, his deductions are 

original and oftentimes so plausible as to seem worthy of extended development and treatment. Unfortunately most of Mr. Taylor's contributions are now inaccessible, he himself being unable to furnish a complete list of them or of their dates and places of publication. His little 

book 1 contains much general information of value to one who contemplates studying this region.

Ex-Governor Oran M. Roberts 2 gives much information concerning the 

physical geography of the State. Perhaps no other man is so thoroughly 

acquainted with the general topography of Texas as he. His observations are acute, but he makes no claim to modern scientific knowledge 

and the valuable data he gives arc unaccompanied by geologic deductions.

1 The Coming Empire, or Two Thousand Miles in Texas on Horseback, by PI. F. 

McDauiels and N. A. Taylor. A. S. Barnes & Co., Ne\v York, 1878. 12°, 390 pp.

2 A Description of Future Texas; Its Advantages and Resources, with Some Account 

of their Development, Past, Present, and Future, by O. M. Roberts, Present Governor oi 

Texas, St. Louis, Mo., Gilbert Book Company, 1881.

(420)
HILL.-] RECENT INVESTIGATIONS. 43

W. F. Cummins has also written many valuable papers for the State 

press. His observations are wide, but his writings are valuable for the 

localities they give rather than as direct contributions to stratigraphy. 

Mr. Cummins has been of great service as a collector, having made Prof. 

E. D. Cope's vertebrate collections in Texas. A list of his sketches in 

periodicals is given below. 1 He has an important mass of unpublished 

material.

Dr. Charles A. Ashburner made an economic study of the coal fields 

of Northwestern Texas in 1881 on behalf of certain railroad companies. 

He contributed a valuable paper to the American Institute of Mining 

Engineers upon the geology of the region.2

Professor E. I). Cope has spent much time in Texas studying its 

zoology. He also studied the fossil vertebrata collected for him. Unfortunately for science, this gentleman made the strati graphic and geographic information of secondary value, and, in addition to giving few

localities, has accepted as present in Texas a geologic formation the 

existence of which has not been scientifically demonstrated. His brief 

exposition of the areal distribution of the formations 3 is one of the 

most valuable extant upon that subject, but it contains an interpretation from which I dissent. He says:

To the eastward of this line [the eastern border of the Cretaceous] a belt of the 

Larainie extends from the northeast and terminates at the south, without continuing 

immediately to the west.

It does not seem, to me that this is the Laramie in any sense of the 

word, for, although it may have been synchronously deposited it has no 

paleontologic or lithologic resemblance to what the great authorities on 

that formation have described and located as the brackish water Laramie of the West. This view is based upon my personal observation of 

both the true Laramio of the West and what Professor Cope terms the 

Larainie in Texas. It is true that both formations belong to the uppermost Cretaceous or the lowest Eocene, but I think that conclusive stratigraphic and paleontologic evidence exists to show that Professor Cope's 

Texas Laramie is but the southern continuation of the lignitic formation of Mississippi and Arkansas or the Eolignitic group of Heilprin.

Professor Cope has also described numerous vertebrate remains from 

what he terms "the Permian formation of Texas." These beds should 

not be confounded with the trans-Pecos Permian beds of the Messrs.

'"Texas geology," Galveston (Texas), Daily News, December 1, 1884. "Geology 

of North Texas," "Permian formation in Texas," "Tertiary coals in Texas," "Carboniferous formation in Texas," and "Artesian water on the Staked Plains;" these 

articles were published in the Dallas (Texas) Herald and the Galvestou (Texas) News 

at various times. The exact dates Mr. Cummins cannot give.

2 " Brazos coal-field, Texas," Traus. Am. Inst. Miu. Eug., Vol. IX, pp. 495-50G, 18SO- '81.

3 On the Zoological Position of Texas, by Edward D. Cope, Bulletin No. 17, U. S. 

Nat. Mus.,pp. 5-8.

(421)
44 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BOLL.45.

Shumard, which are now known to bo late Carboniferous. Professor 

Cope's use of the word is not verified by stratigraphic or invertebrate 

paleontologic data so far published.

Professor Jacob Boll, an able Swiss zoologist and geologist, in 1875- 

1880 conducted a series of explorations in Texas and published a few 

papers upon its geology.1 He, with Mr. Cummins, also collected vertebrate fossils for Professor Cope. His writings were only the introduction to what promised to be valuable original contributions to the geology of Texas; but the strange fatality that has so often interposed a 

barrier to the completion of all thorough work in this State intervened, 

and he died in the field in the summer of 1880.

Walter P. Jenney contributed a short but valuable article upon the 

geology of the trans-Pecos region.2

W. H. Adams published an important paper in which he makes some 

generalizations concerning the coal bearing strata of the Bio Grande 

region.3 His deductions concerning the age of the strata at Eagle Pass, 

Tex., are erroneous and misleading in that he makes it Triassic from 

the lithologic appearances and from the occurrence of an ammonite resembling the genus Ceratites, when in reality it is the very latest of the 

Cretaceous, as may be seen by material in the National Museum.

Dr. jR. H. Lougliridge prepared for the Tenth Census a brief but valuable paper 4 on the geologic features of the State. This may be classed 

as one of the most important contributions to the general topography 

and the geology of Texas. It is accompanied by maps showing the 

distribution of soils &c. and by a brief geologic discussion of the whole 

region. It contains a comprehensive statement of the areal distribution 

of the geologic formations and is by far the best general paper upon the 

subject thus far written. Much detail is given concerning the hitherto 

indefinite boundary between the Tertiary and the Cretaceous, which Dr. 

Loughridge deflects too much to the westward south of San Antonio. 

He notes the occurrence of the Eipley group of the Cretaceous near Terrell, Kaufman County, and gives a list of its fossils. He also describes 

the character of the rotten limestone as it occurs near Clarksville, but 

erroneously includes in this formation the several distinct prairie regions of Central Texas. He uses Dr. B. F. Shumard's section, but his 

own observations are not altogether in harmony therewith. The work 

is chiefly valuable for the topographic information concerning the State.

1<4 Texas in its geognostic and agricultural aspect," American Naturalist, pp. 375- 

384, June, 1879; " Geological examinations in Texas," American Naturalist, Vol. XIV, 

pp. 684-686, September, 1880.

2 "Notes on the geology of Western Texas, near the thirty-second parallel," by 

Walter P. Jenney, Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., Vol. II, pp. 25-28, 1874.

3 " Coals in Mexico, Santa Rosa district," Traus. Am. Inst. Min. Eng., Vol. X, pp. 270, 

271, 1881-'82.

4 "Report on the cotton production of the State of Texas, with a discussion of the 

general agricultural features of the State," Tenth Census of the United States, Vol. 

V, pp. 653-831, 1884.

(422)
HILL.] RECENT INVESTIGATIONS. 45

A. R. Eoessler was the original topographer of the Shuinard survey, 

and thus acquired a fund of geographic knowledge with, which he has 

favored the public through the medium of several map's. One of these, 

printed in 1874, is by far the best contribution to a knowledge of the 

general surface features of the State. Mr. Eoessler has published a 

series of count}r maps, giving colored areas to represent the geologic 

formations, but these maps are not entirely trustworthy. Mr. Eoessler 

has also contributed several articles on the local geology.

Dr. V. Havard, U. 8. A., made a most valuable contribution to the 

knowledge of the general topographic features of the State during 1885. 

Although the work 1 is primarily botanic, these topographic descriptions 

of a region about which so little has heretofore been known are important and far more extensive than those in some of the works giving 

geologic titles.

James P. KMall, Pit. D., in an article on the geology of Western 

Texas,2 discusses the orologic and paleontologic relations of the transPecos country and corrects several errors in the writings of earlier 

travelers. He describes the peculiar metamorphic formation capping 

the Cretaceous strata of the region, termed cantera, and shows its local 

variations. The extensiou of the Texas Cretaceous formation into Mexico is also described. It is one of the most valuable of the very few' 

articles on the region of which it treats.

Charles D. Walcott is the only representative of the scientific corps of 

the U. S. Geological Survey who has as yet published any results upon 

the Texas region founded upon personal observation. He visited the 

Paleozoic rocks of Central Texas in 1884 and published a short paper 

on them the same year, entitled "Notes on Paleozoic rocks of Central 

Texas." 3 This article, although brief, ranks in the same category of 

original investigation as the works of Shumard and Eoemer. It contains the following results: Additional data on the Potsdam section and 

fauna; the Silurian section and fauna; the geologic relations of what 

has long been known as the Archaic region and its first reference to 

the Cambrian; and the determination of the age of the granite of Burnet 

County.

There are several writings upon Texas geology by gentlemen who 

have not visited the State that deserve- mention. Of this number, few 

have dealt with other than isolated paleontologic descriptions of fossils, 

and it is of the latter class that it is proper to insert here a few remarks. 

Paleontology as a science is inseparable from stratigraphy. When 

they are divorced, paleontology becomes a misnomer for what more

1 "Report on the flora of Western and Southern Texas," Proc. U. S. Nat. Mas., Vol. 

VIII (1885), Nos. 29-30, pp. 449-533, Washington, 1885.

2 "Notes on the geology of Western Texas and of Chihuahua, Mexico," by Jainey 

P. Kimball, Ph. D., Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. XLVIII, p. 379,1869.

3 Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 431-433,1884.

(423)
46 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

properly deserves the title of systematic or descriptive zoology. It is 

to be regretted that only three invertebrate paleontologists Drs. Ferdinand Eoemer, Benjamin F. Shumard, and C. D. Walcott have visited 

the State.1 The innumerable descriptions of new species of "Cretaceous" and "Tertiary" fossils from Texas that have adorned the annals 

of the scientific literature of our country for many years will have little 

value to science until the fossils are studied upon the ground and their 

proper stratigraphic position is ascertained.2

Dr. Samuel George Morton3 was the first to make allusion to the Cretaceous strata of Texas. He describes, from the " Calcareous platform of 

Ked Eiver," the fossil Gryphwa Pitcheri, now accepted as the most characteristic fossil of the typical Texas Cretaceous. This locality, we can 

only surmise, was the same as that now called the Staked Plains region 

of Texas. The specimens were collected by Army officers.

F. B. Meek has contributed very little to the number of new species 

from Texas, bufc he has made an earnest endeavor to correlate the Cretaceous strata of Texas with those of the other kindred areas of this 

country.4

Dr. C. A. White has not at this date (December 31, 1885) visited the 

State, but he has published several papers on the paleontology of Texas, 

as well as figured many of the species described, but not illustrated, 

by Dr. Shumard. He has also figured and described several new and 

distinct species and printed lists of fauna from characteristic localities.5

J Since writing the above, Mr. T. A. Aldricb, Dr. C. A. White, and others have done 

some valuable work in Texas.

2 "Descriptions of new Lower Silurian (Primordial), Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary fossils collected in Nebraska by tho exploring expedition under tho command of 

Capt. Wm. F. Raynolds, U. S. Topographical Engineers, with some remarks on the 

rocks from which they were obtained," Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., Vol. XIII, pp. 

415-447, 1861.

'Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States, 

by Samuel George Morton, M. D., Philadelphia, 1834.

4 A Keport on the Invertebrate Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossils of the Upper Missouri Country, by F. B. Meek. Keport of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories. F. V. Hayden, U. S. Geologist in Charge, Vol. IX, Washington, 1876.

5 Dr. White's writings on Texas geology are here given for the convenience of those 

who may be interested, because they are not noted iu the existing paleontologic check 

lists, which were printed before his articles were written:

"Report on the paleontological field work for the season of 1877," Eleventh 

Annual Report of the U. S. Geol. and Geog. Surv. Terr., for 1877, pp. 159-320, 1879. 

Describes several new species of fossils from the Cretaceous strata of Texas.

"Descriptions of new Cretaceous fossils from Kansas and Texas," Proceedings of 

the U. S. National Museum for 1879, Vol. II, pp. 292-298.

"Report upon the Invertebrate Fossils collected in Portions of Nevada, Utah, 

Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, by Parties of the Expeditions of 1871, 1872, 1873, 

and 1874," in Report upon the Geographical and Geological Explorations and Surveys 

West of the One Hundredth Meridian, in charge of First Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler,

(424)
HILL.] WOEK OF U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 47

Prof. Angela Heilprin has published a valuable compilation of the 

observations that have been made upon the Tertiary geology of the 

State in his work entitled Contributions to the Tertiary Geology and 

Paleontology of the United States, printed at Philadelphia in 1884. Besides being a compilation of previous research, the observations and the 

deductions of Professor Heilpriu therein expressed are of great value. 

He has, besides, described several species from the Tertiary of the State.

The writings of Messrs. James Hall, Conrad, and Gabb have been referred to in the preceding pages in connection with the expeditious upon 

which the fossils and other specimens were collected. They also made 

a few individual contributions. The true horizon of the species cannot 

be known until further stratigraphic observations are made.

WORK OF THE U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

This narration of the geologic work accomplished in Texas practically closes at the date when the U. S- Geological Survey was authorized to carry its work into the States (1884), although I have included 

some work done by C. D. Walcott, thus extending the narrative to 

December 31, 1885. The date at which the U. S. Geological Survey 

was enabled to extend its operations into the States is one of the 

most important in our scientific history, and to the State of Texas it 

will prove of especial consequence. The era of hasty reconnaissance 

and poorly published results may be considered ended and the work

Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Vol. IV, Part I, Paleontology, pp. 1-219. 4°. Washington? 1875. Gives lists of fossils from Cretaceous localities in Texas.

"Conditions of preservation of invertebrate fossils," in Bull. U. S. Geological and 

Geographical Survey of the Territories, Vol. V, article VII. Describes characteristic 

condition of preservation of fossils from the Cretaceous rocks of Texas. Washington* 

1879.

"Descriptions of new Cretaceous invertebrate fossils from Kansas and Texas." 

Proc. U. S. National Museum, Vol. II, pp. 292-298, Plates I-IV.

" Contributions to invertebrate paleontology No. 1 : Cretaceous fossils of the Western States and Territories," in Eleventk Annual Report U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories [for the year 1877], pp. 273-319, Plates I-IX. Washington, 1879. Describes a few fossils from the Cretaceous of Texas.

"Contributions to invertebrate paleontology No. 2: Cretaceous fossils from the 

Western States and Territories," in Twelfth Annual Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories [for the year 1878], pp. 1-38; Appendix, pp. 38,39, Plates XI-XVII. Washington, 1883.

Notes on the Mesozoic and Ceuozoic Paleontology of California. U. S. Geological 

Survey Bulletin 15, Washington, 1885. Describes the westward extension of fossils common to Texas.

" On Mesozoic Fossils. Description of certain aberrant forms of the Chainid:» from 

the Cretaceous rocks of Texas." U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin No. 4, Washington, 1884.

" A review of the fossil Ostreidie of Nortli America; aud a comparison of the fossil with the living forms," in Fourth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 

pp. 273-333, Plates XXXIV-LXXXII, Washington, 1884,

(425)
48 PEESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

of thorough scientific exploration will be contiuued under more adequate methods. Already several sheets of the topographic map have 

been issued.1

SUCCESSION OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATIONS.

Diayra'n of sucoesilon of eras of soientiJiG explorations in Texas.

Early Spanish, French,

Anglo-Americau adAnglo-American colonization under empreaario grants .....

Later European investigations. ........

United States military

reconnaissances

United States exploraFirst State geological

survey (Shumard) .

Second State geological survey (GlennTenth census and

other recent invesU. S. Geological Suro

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cartograpliie gdologique employees par 1'United States Geological Survey, presented 

at Berlin by W J McGee.

(426)
II, SUMMARY OF RESULTS,

TOPOGRAPHY.

It is plain that the scientific investigations heretofore made in the 

State of Texas have been elementary and fragmentary in character. 

Especially does this become apparent when we contrast the small amount 

of work done with the size of the State. For instance, strata of the Cretaceous period are found near both Texarkana and El Paso, although 

these cities are nearly eight hundred miles apart; but not a line is published noting a single dissemblance between the stratigraphic and the 

zoologic features of this formation between these two places, except the 

confessedly limited observations of Roemer, Marcou, Shumard, Schott, 

Parry, and Marcy. The contributions of others, especially those of 

a paleontologic nature, will remain unavailable' until further verification. Many of the paleontologic descriptions of species are even without any locality, much less any detailed assignment to a stratigraphic 

horizon, and nothing has been done in the direction of tracing faunal 

or specific range and variation. For the stratigraphy even less can be 

said than for the paleontology, although a few sections of great value 

have been presented. It must be said, however, that stratigraphic 

work has been peculiarly neglected in this State. Even Eoemer's great 

work, the best ever printed on the geology of Texas, does not give a 

single stratigraphic section, and we find extending through its otherwise 

almost incomparable pages a fundamental stratigraphic error whereby 

the value of the whole is impaired.1

The topography of the State, excepting the limited portion covered by 

the recent operations of the U. S. Geological Survey, is poorly delineated. The slope of the surface, the directions of the streams, and 

the principal forest regions were known in a general way to the Spaniards long before the present century and were crudely delineated by 

Humboldt in 1804. The development of detail and the delineation 

of these features upon successive maps until the present time have 

been successively expanded and recorded by Kennedy, Boerner, and 

other individuals, the various land locating parties, railroad surveys, 

'and military expeditions. The finer points of inland topography, 2

1 Roemer thought that the Cretaceous formations at the foot of the highlands between New Brauufels extended beueath instead of resting uncouformably upon them.

2 The U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey has carried its work along the immediate 

coast line of the State.

(427) 49 

Bull. 45 4
50 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

sucli as triau gulation, determination of altitudes, meandering of streams, 

&c., have never been attempted until the recent operations by the U. S. 

Geological Survey, and even the coarser topographic features have not 

been correctly presented. For instance, it is utterly impossible at this 

writing to obtain an idea of the trans-Pecos mountain systems, and no 

map makes a distinction between the hills or buttes east of that region 

and true disturbed mountain ranges. The chief defect in our topographic knowledge of the State is incident to the fragmentary manner 

in which the same has been collected, no attempt having ever been 

made by the State of Texas to make a systematic map of its territory. 1 

The most accurate description of the topographic features is that of 

Loughridge, 1884, but even this fails to classify the natural divisions 

in a comprehensive manner. He says: 2

In the State of Texas we find combined a great diversity in both soil and topography ; * * * in topography, from the extreme of low and flat prairie lands and 

a very little marsh along the coast, by gradual transitions and elevations, to the chains 

and peaks of mountains on the far west [southwest], whose summits are 5,000 feet or

more above the sea.

* * * * # # *

Several of the great agricultural regions that form so prominent a feature in the 

other Southern States have their termini in Texas, and are cut off on the southwest 

either by the prairies of the coast or by the great mesquite and cactus chaparral 

prairies of the Rio Grande region, or they abut against the eastern bluffs of the plains.

The coast of Texas * * * is here bordered by an almost continuous chain of 

islands and peninsulas (the latter having the same trend as the islands). * * * 

The large estuaries that have been formed at the mouths of the streams, except the 

Sabine, the Eio Grande, and those of the Brazos section, form another feature peculiar to the Texas coast. The border lands of these estuaries are usually high, their 

almost vertical clay bluffs being washed by the waters of the bay, and the open 

prairies of the uplands often extend to their very edge.

Mr. Gannett estimates the water area of the coast, bays, gulfs, &c., to be 2,510 

square miles and that of the rivers and lesser streams at about 800 square miles.

A general view of the State, as presented in two cross-sections, presents the following features:

1. Along the Louisiana line. From the mouth of Sabine River northward we find at 

first a small area of marsh lauds, terminating the marsh region of Louisiana, and not 

occurring to any extent westward. Passing theae, we come to the long-leaf pine 

flats, extending westward only to the Trinity River, and being also the western ter1 The map representing the physical geography of Texas more minutely than any 

other is entitled "A. R. Roessler's latest map of the State of Texas, exhibiting 

mineral and agricultural districts, post-offices and mail routes, railroads projected and 

finished, timber, prairie swamp lands, &.c. Authorities: Official maps of the United 

States and Texas State General Laud Offices, surveys and reconuoissances of the U. S. 

Coast Survey, the various railroad surveys, U. S. Mexican Boundary Commission 

Surveys, U. S. Engineer Dept., and other authentic materials, compiled and drawn 

by M. Y. Mittendorfer, C. E., 1874." Much of the excellent detail of this map was 

evidently made from data collected by tho Shumard survey, of which Mr. Roessler 

was topographer.

2 Tenth Census : Report on Cotton Production iu the United States. Report on the 

Cotton Productioa of the State of Texas, Part I, pp. 653-831.

(428)
HILL.] TOPOGRAPHY OP TEXAS. 51

minus of the belt that extends across all of the Gulf States, the lower part of Florida, 

and along the Atlantic coast through North Carolina. Its surface in Texas is quite 

love} northward for about 50 miles, when the more undulating or rolling piue hills 

are reached, which also form a border to the pine flats just mentioned across the 

southern Gulf States. Thence northward to Eed Eiver the country is rolling and 

hilly, and is covered with oak, hickory, and short-leaf pine a region that extends 

eastward through Louisiana, Arkansas, and the northern part of Mississippi into 

Tennessee. This region passes southwestward, becoming more and more narrow, 

until it tapers off to a point 100 miles from the Rio Graude, and also includes the belt 

of the red Tertiary hills of the other States that probably terminates on the southwest in Guadalupe County.

2. From the coast in anorthivest and west direction. The mainland coast of Texas presents a very irregular outline, with its many bays, peninsulas, and islands, and but a 

small proportion of the mainland reaches the waters of the Gulf. As before stated, 

there is scarcely any marsh land on the coast west of the Sabiue marshes.

For a distance of from 50 to 100 miles inland from the coast the country is very 

level, with open prairies, whoso continuity is broken only by the timbered streams, 

with occasional strips or " motts " or clumps of timber, and by the broad and heavily 

timbered alluvial or "sugar bowl" region of the Brazos.

The rise, alight and very gradual inland from the coast, is almost imperceptible for 

many miles, when the country becomes undulating and then rolling, and the prairies 

give way to the more or less broken and hilly oak and pine uplands, which cover all 

of the northeastern part of the State, as already mentioned. The country rises rapidly to the north and northwest, reaching an elevation of several hundred feet along 

the western edge of the timbered region, and is interspersed throughout with small 

"brown loam prairies." Leaving the timber lands and continuing northwest we 

find a region of " black waxy prairies," underlaid by the Cretaceous "rotten limestone," extending southwest to San Antonio and thence west to the foot of the plains. 

Northward this region passes through the southern part of the Indian Territory into 

Arkansas. These prairies are at first, on the east, rather level, or at most undulating, 

with an altitude of 500 or 600 feet, but westward become more rolling, hilly, and 

broken, until finally, on their western limits, high and bald hills and peaks stand out 

in bold relief at an elevation of nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. The monotony of 

these interior prairies is broken by the timbered streams and ou the north by the 

wide belt of "lower cross timbers," which reaches from the Red Rivor to the Brazos 

in an almost due south course. Otherwise there is very little timber to be seen.

At the western edge of the northern half of the black prairie region there is another 

belt of cross timbers, 1 interspersed with small, black, Cretaceous prairies, very irregular in outline and iu width, and beyond it is the broad red-loam and partly timbered 

region, comprising high ridges, mesquite prairie valleys, and broad lablelands, the 

country gradually rising to the foot of the high plateau of the Llano Estacado, several 

thousand feet above the level of the sea. This region terminates on the southwest 

against the bluffs of the plains south of the Llano Estacado, and a large area penetrates southeastwardly almost across the black prairie region.

On the northwest there is a large, extensive region, lying wedge shaped, with its 

point south, between the red loam lauds and the Llano Estacado, and comprising the 

great gypsum lands of the State, with high and rolling prairies, whose uplands are 

largely destitute of timber.

To the westward the broad, level, and bare plains of the Llano Esfcjicado occupy 

a terrace with abrupt bluffs on the north, some 200 feet above these regions, and with 

a gentle rise pass out of the Stafce into New Mexico on the west and to the mountains 

on the southwest. Deep canons have been cut into the eastern part of this plateau

J Mr. Loughridge places this edge of the black prairie too far west. It ends at the 

eastern edge of the lower cross timbers.

(429)
52 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

by the headwaters of the large rivers of the State, but to the west there is only a 

vast, treeless plain, more or less undulating, with a few low but prominent sand hills 

au cl ridges.

On the extreme west, between the Pecos and the Rio Graude, the country reaches 

its maximum height, with several chains of almost treeless mountains rising several 

thousand feet above the general levelj and separated from each other by broad and 

level plains 20 or 30 miles in width and almost destitute of vegetation. These mountain ranges outer the State from New Mexico. Southward the plains extend along the 

Rio Grancle to a point a little south of its junction with the Pecos. Thence to the 

Gulf are broad and high prairies, broken by deep arroyos or ravines, and with little 

growth other than occasional live oak trees and great chaparrals or thickets of thorny 

shrubs.

CLASSIFICATION OF TOPOGRAPHY OF TEXAS.

For convenience of discussion I broadly classify the general topograpby of Texas as follows:

First. The coastal plain, representing the continuation of the topographic features of the other Gulf States, so far as they represent the 

sedimentation of the former waters of the Upper Cretaceous outlines of 

the Gulf of Mexico, the topographic and geologic boundaries coinciding. 

In Texas this approximately coincides with a line drawn concentric with 

the Gulf coast about 200 miles inland.

Second. The black prairie region, a triangular area immediately succeeding the foregoing to the west. It is also a southern continuation of 

similar topographic and geologic features of Arkansas, Mississippi, and 

Alabama. Its western boundary extends from Eagle Pass via Austin 

to Denison, on Eed River. It is a level or gently undulating prairie, 

with a general slope to the southeast and an altitude of from 500 to 750 

feet. The underlying strata are uniformly Cretaceous and of a horizon 

that will be described elsewhere.

Third. The central or denuded region, embracing all the country 

between the escarpment of the plains and the black prairie region 

and north of the hydrographic basin of the Colorado. This region comprises a number of geologic formations and is between 600 and 2,000 

feet in altitude.

Fourth. The plateau region, comprising the Llano Estacado. It is a 

continuation from the northward of the topographic and geologic features of the great plains along the eastern slope of the Eocky Mountains. 

' Fifth. The mountainous or trans-Pecos region. This consists of the 

country in Texas and Northern Mexico adjacent to the disturbed area 

of the southern or southeasterly prolongation of the Rocky M0untains. It is chiefly west of the Pecos, in Texas, but crosses into Mexico 

west of that river, again recrosses the Eio Grande east of it near Eagle 

Pass, and continues until a few miles south of Laredo.

Each of the areas has a well marked individuality, although the 

boundaries between them cannot always be closely defined.

(430)
BILL.] TOPOGRAPHY OF TEXAS. 53 

Chart illustrating the progressive classification of tlic topographic features of Texas.

Kennedy, 1841.

The level region.

Rolling or undulating region.

Mountainous 

region.

Ferd. von 

Roomer, 1848.

Thelevel region 

(niedriges, fla- 

 ches Land).

Hill land, or

rolling or undulating region (sauftwelliges Hiigelland).

Highlands (das 

zum Theilfolsige Hochlaud).

Steppen-Lande.

R. H. Louchridgo,

1884.

Southern and coast

prairies.

Gray silt and pine

lands. 

Sea marsh. 

Oak, hickory, and 

pine region.

Brazos delta and

other alluvial

.

lands.

Central black prairie region.

Cross timbers.

Sand hills and

rnetam orphic 

lands of Central Texas.

Northwestern red

loam prairies

and timber

lands.

Gypsum prairie

region.

Llano Estacado 

(table lands and 

sand hills).

Plains with granitic mountains

and probably

" sand " desert

of Rio Graude.

Classification used in this work.

(1) The coastal plain.

Pine lands.

Pine, oak, and

hickory lands. 

Prairies of East 

Texas. 

Coast alluvium.

Southwestern

prairies.

(2) Black prairie region.

(3) Ceu traloi: denuded

.region.

Cross timbers.

Coal Measures. 

Grand prairie.

Butte districts.

Hamilton County

prairie.

Granite region.

Gypsum lands.

Red prairies.

(4) Plateau or Staked 

Plains region.

(5) Mountainous or

trans-Pecos region.

West of Pecos

River and Lower

Rio Grande, between Eagle Pass

and Laredo.

Continuation of salient

topographic features 

of coast plain of 

Louisiana, Arkansas, 

Mississippi, Alabama, &c.

Continuation of black

prairie regions of 

same States, except

Louisiana.

Peculiar to Central

Texas and southern 

part of Indian Territory. Terminates

west of San Antouio

before reaching Kio

Grande.

Southern continuation

of Great Plains at 

eastern foot of 

Rocky Mountains, 

British America to

Southern Texas.

Southeastward deflection aud continuation of mountain

region of New Mexico.

HISTORIC GEOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY.

In the following table are given, from the writings already mentioned, 

the members of the geologic series that have been reported from Texas. 

The authority for some of these groups is slight and untrustworthy, but

(431)
PRESENT KNOWLEDGE 0$ GEOLOGY OF TEXAS.

nevertheless they have been thus published. Many of the subdivisions 

are synonyms of different authors, which will require extensive field 

work for positive identification and correlation.

Geologic formations reputed to occur in the Stale of Texas, with authorities.

Era.

'3

n

a)

O

o

o

<a

?3

0

'8

o

»

CS OH

Period.

>j

I

EH

A

o

1

5

O l-7>

Po

« 2 s2

m

m

3 

g

«

a

5

a 

«.S

fig 

t>

a/ cs t* -e

o a 

^5

il05

Q

i '2 £ § w a

o

Subperiod.

Jurassic* . ............

Permo-Carboniferous .

Permian 2 ' 0 ...........

Calciferous 10 .........

Potsdam 10 ............

Llano 10 . ..............

Azoic ................

Local formations.

Grand Gulf s.......... ....................

Wanhita Limestone 3 ......................

Upper Carboniferous 8 ....................

(. Traus-Pecos region 8 )

ieported occurrence in topographic area 

1

1

1

1

1

1 and 2

2

3

3

2

2

2

2 or 3

3

3

3 

3

3 and 4

3

r>

3

3

3

NOTE. Authorities: ' Ferdinand Koemer; 2 G.G. Shurnard ; 3 Jules Marcou; 'B.F.Shumard; 6 E.H. 

Loughridse; 6 E.D.Cope; 7 Angelo Heilprin; 8 James Hall; 9 C. A. Ashburner; 10 C. D. Walcott. 

Names of local formations, in italic, as applied by the -writers referred to are no longer accepted.

(432)
HILL] SUMMARY OF GEOLOGIC! RESULTS. 55

SO-CALLED ARCHEAN AND EARLIER PALEOZOIC STEATA.

The older rocks of the geologic series are found in both the central 

and the trans-Pecos area, but they have been studied chiefly in the former and little or nothing is known of their exact occurrence in the 

latter.

A few miles south of the present geographic center of the State, in 

the counties of Mason, Llano, Burnet, and San Saba, is an outcrop of 

so-called Archean and earlier Paleozoic rock. This region was known 

to the Spaniards and was evidently considered by them of much mineral importance. Kennedy l first intimated its geologic age and Boemer 

was the first to give an intelligent description of it. Dr. B. F. Shuniard 

confirmed Eoemer's work, but its true stratigraphic relations were not 

understood until lately studied by C. D. Walcott, of the TJ. S. Geological Survey, Of these Paleozoic strata Mr, Walcott says: 2

At all localities where the base of the Potsdam was observed it- rests unconformally on a great formation that is stratigraphically the equivalent of Powell's Grand 

Cafiou series (Grand CaBon and Chuar groups). 3 In the Grand Canon of the Colorado 

the latter are overlaid by the Touto group, a series of rocks in both, lithologic and 

paleontologic characters singularly like the Texas Potsdam group.-

For this series of pre-Potsdam strata the local name of Llano group is proposed, from 

the best exposures of the group occurring in th« county of Llano. Outcrops also occur 

in Bnruet, Mason, San Saba, Blanco, and Gillespie Counties.

Mr. Walcott speaks of " extrusions of granite at or near the close of 

the erosion of the Llano group and before the deposition of the Potsdam," and says further:" It is to this age that the great masses of granite 

observed in Western Burnet and all through Llano County belong." 

The early students of these strata supposed that the outcrops of 

eruptive and granitic rocks were Azoic or Archean, and that they were 

the base of the entire series. Mr. Walcott showed that there are no 

rocks there exposed of the undoubted Archeau and that the granites 

before referred to that era were not fundamental, but extrusive, and 

since his deductions are based upon more careful stratigraphic study

1 Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of the Republic of Texas, Vol. I, pp. 

114 et seq.

2 " Note on Paleozoic rocks of Central Texas," Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., Vol. XXVIII, 

pp. 431-433, 1884..

3 In a later paper Mr. Walcott refers these groups to the Keweenawau, and says: 

" The Keweenaw system is here used to include the Keweenaw series of the Lake 

Superior region, the Llano series of Texas, and the Chuar and Grand Gallon series of the 

Grand Cafion of the Colorado, Arizona, and is considered of equal value with the 

Cambrian, Lower Silurian (Ordovician), Upper Silurian, and other systems of the 

Paleozoic rather than the Archean. It may be that the Keweenaw and Grand Canon 

series belong to distinct systems of strata, but until this is proven I prefer to provisionally refer them to the pre:Cambrian, post-Huronian system. I think the Graud 

Canon and Llano strata belong to one system." "Classification of the Cambrian 

System of North America," Am. Jour. Sci., 3d ser., Vol. XXXII, pp. 138-157, 1886. 

The extract forms a note on p. 153.

(433)
56 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE of GEOLOGY of TEXAS.

than those of his predecessors they are more trustworthy. According 

to him these earlier Paleozoic rocks consist of the following :

(1) The Llano group. Alternating beds of shale, sandy shale, sandstone, limestone, and schists ; thickness not determined, but probably 

over 2,000 feet ; continuity broken by extrusive sheets of granite of prePotsdam origin 5 stratification disturbed by movement at the close of 

the Paleozoic, whereby the dip increases from 10° at the north end of 

the ridge to 40° at the south end ; strike, eastward ; unfossiliferous.

(2) The Potsdam group. 1 Consists of massive sandstone, limestone, 

and Potsdam sandstone, marked by abundant Upper Cambrian (Potsdam) fauna.

(3) The Calciferous group. Lower Silurian, with its characteristic 

fauna.

(4) The Carboniferous group, which was not here studied in detail.

From the observations of Mr. Walcott it is evident (a) that there are 

no Archeau exposures yet known in Central Texas (this being the only 

Paleozoic region yet studied) ; (&) that thepre-Potsdam, the Silurian, and 

the Carboniferous groups are represented ; (c) that the Devonian is absent; (d) that the age of the so-called Archean granites is Paleozoic; (e) 

that there were two well marked epochs of disturbance, one after the close 

of the sedimentation of the Llano group and the other near the close of 

the Paleozoic; (/) that the Llano group is the equivalent of the Grand 

Caiion and Chuar groups of Powell, and hence at the time of their deposition the sedimentation was continuous to the westward of the Grand 

Caiion.

The Paleozoic strata, excepting the Carboniferous, have only a limited outcrop in Texas, so far as has been discovered. The disturbed 

areas of the Wichita Mountains, in the southwestern corner of Indian 

Territory, theoretically present every favorable condition for the presence of similar exposures, but no evidence of their existence has been 

reported, except the similarity of their granitic structure.2

The large trans-Pecos disturbed mountain area also presents exposures of early Paleozoic strata, as has been reported by G. G. Shumard, 

Jenney, Kimball, and members of various government expeditions. 

Concerning the occurrence of the Lower Silurian in that region, Dr. 

G. G. Shumard said of the valley of the Eio Graude above El Paso : 3

The limestone of the Lower Silurian system is seen strongly upheaved against the 

western base until we reach a point ten or eleven miles north oft he place where it 

was first discovered, when it disappears and is succeeded by strata of the Carboniferous system, which are exposed in places to the thickness of about three hundred 

feet. Against the western declivity, El Paso Mountains, the limestone strata are 

strongly upheaved, and where it is in immediate contact with the eruptive strata it

1 Well described by B. F. Shumard, Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., Vol. XXXII, pp. 2W-221,

2 See numerous references in Exploration of the Eod River of Louisiana in the year 

1852, by Randolph B. Marcy, 1854. 

3 Traus. Aoad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. I, p. 288.

(434)
HIM..I CARBONIFEROUS 01* TEXAS. 57

is highly metamorphosed. I was much interested by finding here, 'near the hase of 

the exposure, well marked strata of the inferior Silurian system, corresponding in 

age to the blue limestone of Cincinnati and the Hudson River group of the NewYork series. The following fossils were procured from these beds: Orihis testudinaria 

Dalman, 0. occidentalis Hall, Rhynchonella capax Conrad, Rhynchonella (a species of the 

blue limestone of Cincinnati), Streptalasma cornicula? Hall, and columns of crinoids.

Every reason exists for the supposition, that the Cambrian strata are 

exposed there, but no surveys of the region have been made. 1 Walter 

P. .Jenney 2 gives a section of the rocks north of El Paso, two miles, in 

the Organ Mountains, and recognizes there the following formations in 

descending series: Carboniferous, or Niagara, deposited uuconformably upon a coarse conglomerate, which he thinks probably equivalent 

to the Oneida conglomerate of New York; gray limestone of the Hudson period; black limestone representing the Trenton, the Chazy, the 

Calciferous sand rock, and the Potsdam. He finds similar rocks in the 

Hueco Mountains, twenty miles north of the Organ Mountains, and concludes that "the greater part of the Upper Silurian and the whole 

of the Devonian periods are unrepresented in the rocks of Western 

Texas." He notes an immense development of the Carboniferous strata 

in the Sacramento and the Guadalupe Mountains, and of syenite at 

Los Coruudos. He also gives a section of the Llano Estacado as exposed at Castle Canon and affirms their Cretaceous age; the highest 

he makes the Caprina Limestone of Shumard. He erroneously concludes that the denuded Cretaceous buttes east of the plains almost as 

far as Austin " were islands in the sea which produced the denudation, 

their tops showing no evidence of having ever been submerged, and 

in some cases wave worn cavities extend at the same height along 

their sides.3

CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM.

The absence of the Devonian from the stratigraphic series in Texas 

has been noted, first by Iloemer and later by Walcott and others. Dr. 

S. B. Buckley asserts in one of his reports that Dr. B. F. Shumard had 

previously announced the occurrence of the Devonian strata in Texas, 

but I have failed to find such a statement in any of Shumard's publications. If the Devonian is not represented, then it is evident that the 

Carboniferous strata are next in order after the Silurian. This fact was 

demonstrated by Eoemer, who first noted the positive occurrence of the 

Carboniferous strata in Texas resting upon the older rocks along the 

San Saba Eiver. He formed no idea of the extent of these rocks, however, and was not aware of their great development northward.

It is now evident that there are two widely separated areas of the 

Carboniferous strata in Texas, each of which has well marked individ-

! C. H. Hitchcock's geological map of the United States gives a largo Cambrian 

area in the trans-Pecos region of Texas.

2 " Notes on the geology of Western Texas near the thirty-second parallel, by Walter P. Jeuney," Am. Jour. Sci., 3d sor., Vol. VII, pp. 25-28, 1874.

s These buttes are the remnants of subaerial erosion entirely.

(435)
KNOWLEDGE 6# GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

uality. These I will describe separately under the names of the Central Carboniferous area and the trans-Pecos Carboniferous area.

The central Carboniferous area. This is a comparatively narrow but 

elongated area of exposures, continuing from Indian Territory, between 

the ninety-eighth and the one hundredth meridian. Its eastern border 

is limited by the upper cross timbers. The extent of this area in Texas 

is some two hundred miles north and south between the Colorado Eiver 

and the Bed Eiver. Geologically it may be said to extend along the 

axis of greatest denudation from the point of greatest disturbance, in * 

Llano County, to the connection with the great Missouri coal field in 

Indian Territory. The latitudinal development of exposures is of varying width, owing to the irregularity of the denudation of the superincumbent Cretaceous strata, and other causes. The exposure widens, 

however, towards its southern base. At no place does it exceed one 

hundred miles in width. Exposures have been noticed in Young, Jack, 

Montague, Stephens, Shackelford, Palo Pinto, Baylor, Wise, Coleman, 

Brown, Comanche, Kunnels, McCulloch, Tom Green, and San Saba 

Counties. Its exact boundaries are unknown. The exposures of these 

strata are the result of denudation of the Cretaceous, which once covered them entirely, and I have noted on the preceding pages the history 

of the discovery of this area. Dr. Eoemer's determinations were based 

upon stratigraphic and paleontologic data and he did not discover the 

existence of bituminous coal. Various Army officers have noted the 

occurrence of coal to the northward, but it was first clearly described 

by Dr. G. G. Shumard in his remarks accompanying Marcy's report on 

the exploration of the Eed Eiver of Louisiana (1854). Mr. Jules Marcou the next year contributed much toward a knowledge of the geologic and stratigraphic relations and in subsequent maps intimated the 

continuity of the Young and San Saba County areas. Dr. B. F. Shumard, 

as State geologist (1858), was the first to demonstrate in the field the 

actual continuity of the two regions, concerning which he contributed 

nearly all we know. The local occurrence and the general exten t having been proved by these earlier reconnaissances, there still remains 

much to find out concerning nearly all the geologic data of the region. Prof. C. A. Ashburner, of Pennsylvania, in a study of the northern portion of these coal fields in 1879, made the following section of 

the strata in the vicinity of Fort Belkuap, Young County r 1

Feet. 

Sandstone and conglomerate .................................................. 40

Coal ......................................................................... 1

Sandstone and shale .......................................................... 12

Coal.......................................................................... 1

Sandstone and shale with occasional beds of limestone......................... 15

Belknapcoal bed .........................................I................ -2£ to 4

Sandstone and shale ........................................................... 12

i ''Brazos coal-field, Texas," Trw».'Am. Inst. Mining Bug., Vol. IX, p. 497, 1880-'8l.

(436)
UILI.J CARBONIFEROUS OF TEXAS. B(j

Feet. 

Coal ......................................................................... 1

Gray slate .................................................................... 10

Sandstone .................................................................... 25

Brazos coal bed ............................................................. 4 to <i

Gray limestone ............................................................... 150

From the above section he made the following deductions:

This succession of the strata is not unlike that to be found in many localities where 

the Carboniferous rocks are found in the Middle States. It seems to point clearly to 

 the conclusion that the top sandstone and conglomerate is the representative of the 

Carboniferous conglomerate or Millstone Grit; that the limestone is the sub-Carboniferous or Mountain limestone, known generally throughout the Mississippi Valley as 

the Saint Louis or Chester limestone, and that the included Coal Measures are really 

subcouglomerate.

His final conclusions are summed up at the close of the paper just 

quoted as follows:

The Brazos coal field is the southwestern limit of the Missonrian or fourth bituminous coal basin of the United States. The Coal Measures of Stephens and Young 

Counties belong to the Carboniferous age. The coal strata proper are 85 feet thick, 

and are included between an upper sandstone and a conglomerate, representative of 

the Millstone Grit or Pottsville conglomerate No. 12 of the Pennsylvania series, and 

a lower gray limestone, representative of the Mountain limestone or Chester and 

Saint Louis limestone of the Mississippi Valley. The coal strata contain two coal 

beds of workable thickness. The upper bed, named Belknap, ranges from 2$ to 4 

feet; and the lower, named Brazos, from 4 to G feet. The coals are high in ash and 

sulphur, but have never been thoroughly tested. The Brazos bed underlies a great 

area and will no doubt prove to be a valuable commercial coal in some localities.

The southern portion of these central exposures has not been so 

well studied, and we have nothing but analogy from which to infer 1 

that there they are practically the same, except that the carbonaceous 

layers in that region become almost if not quite extinct.

Dr. Buckley reports coal from this southern region, but he was not 

an authority on the subject of coals, not having had a clear idea of the 

distinction between the true coals of the Carboniferous and later Western formations and the lignite of the Mississippi area, which is known 

to occur in near proximity.2

The trans-Pecos Carboniferous area. Along the disturbed axes of the 

traus-Pecos mountainous region extensive beds of limestone have been 

frequently noted by reconnoitering parties. The knowledge of the topography of this area is very limited, and, this being true, it is evideut 

that little can be known of the distribution of the geologic formations. 

That Carboniferous rocks occur in this region has been recorded by 

many observers, but very little is yet known of their true nature, except 

that they usually consist of massive limestone, are barren of coal seams, 

and that they occur along the disturbed and denuded mountain re1 " Brazos coal-field, Texas," Trails. Am. Inst. Mining Eng., Vol. IX, p. 506, 1880-'81.

2 See discussion of coals, First Report of Progress, Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, B. F. Shumard, State geologist, Austin, 1865.

(437)
60 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOG? OF TEXAS. fnuu.4&

gions. These rocks are probably a continuation of the New Mexican 

Carboniferous, as has been noted by Marcou and others. 1

Two expeditions have supplied some details concerning this region, 

but oar knowledge of it is still very general. One expedition recorded 

the Carboniferous as it occurs near the Bio Grande, the other as it occurs approximately along the thirty-second parallel. The observers 

were Dr. C. C. Parry,2 of the Mexican boundary survey, and Dr. G. G. 

Shumard,3 of Capt. John Pope's expedition for boring artesian wells in 

the Great Plains. The collections of both of these gentlemen fell into* 

the hands of good geologists, and reports were written upon them by 

Prof. James Hall4 and Dr. B. F. Shumard,5 respectively.

Dr. Parry, in his remarks,6 gives the following general facts concerning the occurrence of this formation along his line of observation: 

The first disturbance, traveling westward from San Antonio to El Paso, 

is Sierra Diablo, or Limpia Range, near Fort Davids. The elevation 

at Leon Springs, the last point upon the horizontal, undisturbed Cretaceous strata before reaching this range, is some 2,200 feet above San 

Antonio,6 giving an average rise of seven feet to the mile- and a total 

elevation above the sea of 2,788 feet.

This range is characterized at nearly all the separate points notice'l 

by Dr. Parry by the presence of igneous rocks accompanied by metsimorphic rocks and strata of sedimentary character, which Professor 

Hall considered to be of the Carboniferous period. The dip varies, but 

is generally to the southwest. From this range westward to El Paso 

there are several other mountainous elevations and intervening plains, 

the former being of the character of the Lfrnpia Range just mentioned 

and the latter consisting of alluvial deposits, the detritus from the 

surrounding mountains. At El Paso the character of the region again 

changes, a greater disturbance being noted. On the Mexican side the 

various formations, stratified and igneous, are blended and intermixed 

in great confusion, while on the American side the strata consist of 

stratified limestone dipping W.SW., in the face of which rest igneous 

outbursts associated with the disturbed Cretaceous beds.7 This limestone was determined by Professor Hall to belong to the Carboniferous 

series, being a continuation of that above noted.

1 Described in Report U. S. Geog. Snrv. West of One Hundredth Meridian, undercharge of Capt. G. M. Wheeler, Vol. Ill, Supplement, Geology.

2 See Report U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II.

3 See Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vols. I and II. Numerous papers by both Dr. 

0. G. and Dr. B. F. Shumard.

4 Observations on the Carboniferous limestone of the Boundary Survey collections, 

and its relations with the Carboniferous limestones of the Mississippi Valley. Ay 

James Hall, in Report U. S. and Mex. Bound. Snrv., Vol. I, Part II, p. 122.

6 Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis.

6 Report U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II, p. 4.

7 Ibid., p. 8.

(438)
HILL.] CARBONIFEROUS OF TEXAS. 61

Concerning its age, he said: 1

The Carboniferous limestone so often mentioned in the preceding pages, and which 

has been usually referred to in published reports as "Carboniferous limestone" and 

as Lower Carboniferous limestone, is actually of the same age as the Coal Measures.

* * * In all the collections which I have examined from Texas and New Mexico, 

and from points farther north in the same line, and particularly in the collections 

made by Captain Stansbury on his route from the Missouri to the Great Salt Lake 

aud in that region, I have never observed fossils which are characteristic of the Lower 

Carboniferous limestone.2

Dr. G. G. Shumard's observations of these strata along the thirtysecond parallel agree with those of Parry in general respects. Along 

this route he repeatedly found exposures of the Carboniferous strata, 

where he crossed the disturbed mountain chains of the Guadalupe, 

the Cornudos, the Sierra Alta, the Sierra Hueca, aud the El Paso 

Mountains, respectively. In addition to the features noticed by Parry 

he observed the Lower Silurian (Cambrian 1?) underlying the Carboniferous to the north of El Paso and elsewhere.

He noted the.following stratigraphic features of the region:

(1) It is underlaid by a granite bearing series (the Llano Group of 

Walcottf).

(2) The Carboniferous in some places rests conformably upon the 

Lower Silurian strata.

(3) The Cretaceous rests unconformably upon the Carboniferous.

(4) The Paleozoic strata of the region are greatly disturbed.

(5) The occurrence of characteristic fossils of the Coal Measures 

proves the age of these strata. Here, however, they were purely marine, the rocks being almost entirely of limestone aud the fossils characteristic invertebrates similar to those of the Carboniferous of Missouri 

and Illinois.

Above these rested a later series, which he and his brother, Dr. 

Benj. F. Shurnard, called the Permian,3 containing fossils having many 

characteristics of Permian fossils and similar to the rocks of the same 

nature reported by Swallow and Horn and by Meek and Hayden in 

Kansas. Other species were said to be identical with characteristic 

Permian fossils of England and Eussia and many were new to science.

Upon comparison with the Llano County strata, as noted by Koemer, 

Shumard, Walcott, and others, it will be seen that they have some 

common features. The distance between these two areas of disturbance, from Llano County to the intersection of the Guadalupe Mountains and the thirty-second parallel of latitude, is 300 miles, and the intervening surface is occupied by nearly horizontal undisturbed series 

of Mesozoic rocks, which at each place are unconforniablo with the

1 Report U. S. and Mex. Bound. Survey, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 122, 123.

2 This opinion of Professor Hall has been confirmed by observations of the extension of these strata farther north. See U. S. Geog. Surv. West of the One Hundredth 

Meridian, in charge of Capt. G. M. Wheeler, Vol. Ill, Supplement, Geology.

3 Concerning these Permian strata I shall say more in the following pages.

(439)
62 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

Carboniferous, indicating beyond doubt that there was a period of 

great disturbance at the close of the Paleozoic.

It is very doubtful whether the Carboniferous strata of this region 

of the State are of economic value. Coal deposits have been discovered within the past few months very near the region visited by Dr. 

Shnmard, 1 but their horizon is not announced.2 Coals have also been 

reported north of El Paso, but their place in the geologic scale is Cretaceous, coal not now being considered as representing the Carboniferous age unless accompanied by stratigraphic or paleontologic proof.

General conclusions. From the foregoing resum6 of investigations of 

the Texas Carboniferous the following general facts are evident:

1. It occupies two widely separated areas the relation of which is 

unknown.

2. The first or central area consists of coal bearing strata arid is allied 

by geographical continuity to the coals of Indian Territory, Arkansas, 

Missouri, Iowa, &c.

3. The second or trans-Pecos area belongs to the great western deposit of non coal bearing, marine Carboniferous of the West.

4. Both of these areas are greatly disturbed and the Cretaceous is 

deposited unconformably upon them.

5. Although one distinguished authority has announced the presence 

of sub-Carboniferous strata in Texas, their existence has not been demonstrated,3 and both areas probably belong to the later Carboniferous, 

the trans-Pecos graduating into almost Permian facies.

THE SO-CALLED PERMIAN4 OR PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS.

The term Permian has for many years been applied, with much indefiniteness, to certain Texas strata, and it is difficult to form from

1 Sierra Blauca.

3 It is now known that these coals are later Cretaceous.

3 Prof. C. A. Asaburner announced that the limestone at the base of his section (see 

p. 59) was sub-Carboniferous. Prof. W. F. Cummins, of Dallas, Tex., first called my 

attention to the fact that Mr. Aahburner was probably mistaken. From personal 

observation I have also good reason for doubting its existence. Not a single sub-Carboniferous fossil has been found in Texas, and the limestone of the Central Coal 

Measures bears great lithologic and faunal resemblances to that of the nou coal bearing western strata.

4 The word Permian has been applied for many years to various strata in the great area 

between the western boundary of the exposures of the Missourian or fourth coal 

basin of the United States and the Sierras, especially in the States of Texas and Kansas, the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, and in Indian Territory. Prof. J. S. 

Newberry, at the meeting of the International Geological Congress at Berlin (1885), 

asserted that he believed no Permian strata to exist in the United States. Whether 

the existence of Permian strata here can be proved or not I cannot say, but it has 

been clearly demonstrated that sedimentation was going on in this country synchronously with the deposition of the Permian of Europe. That this sedimentation was 

different from the European in lithologic and organic characters is true.

(440)
HILL.] PERMIAN OF TEXAS. 63

published writings even a general idea of what was intended by those 

who have most frequently used it.

It has been applied.by different authors1 to at least two entirely distinct geologic horizons occupying widely separated areas. Although 

one of these has been described with comparatively much more distinctness than the other, there is still much danger of confounding the two. 

No paleontologic or stratigraphic data have ever been produced showing any relation between them.

The trans-Pecos region of Shumard. The first locality to which the 

term Permian was applied was the region west of the Pecos Eiver, near 

the Eio Grande, occupied by the disturbed outliers of the Eocky Mountains, known as the Guadalupe Eange or Eanges.

At a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science, held March 8, 

1858, the following report was made: 2

Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard stated that since he had examined Major Hawn's collection from the Permian rocks of Kansas he had studied a series of fossils from the 

White Limestone of the Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico, which were obtained by 

his brother, Dr. G. G. Shumard, while acting in the capacity of geologist of the Government expedition, under Capt. John Pope, for obtaining water by means of artesian wells along the line of the thirty-second parallel, and that he had arrived at the 

conclusion that these also were of Permian age. This White Limestone, he remarked, 

contains a number of fossils that are identical with Permian species of England and 

Russia, while others are near analogues of eharacteristic Permian forms of those 

countries; several are also identical wiih Permian species, described by Professor 

Swallow, 8 from Kansas. The collection contains well marked examples of Aulosteges, 

a genus that has not been recognized in formations below the Permian. The species, 

however, were distinct from the English and Russian forms. There are specimens 

which agree perfectly with the descriptions and figures of Camarophoria Sohlotheimi, 

C. Geinilziana, and Productus Leplayi, as given by Verneuil and King; also a Productus very analogous, if not identical, with Productus Cancrini, and a Terebratula, 

that agrees with T. superstes of Verneuil in every respect except that the dorsal 

valve of the American fossil is not quite so gibbons. There is also in the collection 

Terebratula elongata, Terebratula (Spirifera) pectinifera, Spirifer cristata, Acanthocladia 

anceps, Synocladia, and fragments of a Nonoiis which approaches nearest to M. speluncaria. Besides these, the collection embraces new species of Productus, Spirifer, 

Chonetes, Corals, TriloUtes, and a slender Fusulina nearly two inches in length. 

Scarcely any of these fossils are positively identical with forms of our western [Missouri] Coal Measures.

In subsequent papers 4 Dr. B. F. Shumard described these forms 

more at length, and his brother, Dr. G. G. Shumard, contributed an 

article 5 giving a very succinct stratigraphic description of the region.

'B. F. and G. G. Shumard, 1860, and E. D. Cope, 1874. 

2 Trans.Acad.Sci. St. Louis, Vol. I, pp. 112-114, 1856-1860.

3 Ibid., p.lll.

4 "Notice of new fossils from the Permian strata of New Mexico and Texas, collected 

by Dr. George G. Shumard," &c., Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. I, pp. 390-297; 

"Notice of fossils from the Permian strata of Texas and New Mexico," &c., ibid., 

pp. 387-415.

6 Observations on the geological formations of the country between the Rio Pecos 

and the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, near the line of the thirty-second parallel, &c., 

ibid., pp. 273-289.

(441)
G t PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

According to the latter the white, gray, and other colored limestones 

forming this series have a thickness of over a thousand feet, are 

greatly disturbed, and have a varying dip.

The extent of these exposures is probably identical with that of the 

trans-Pecos Carboniferous area already described, from which the rocks 

are stratigraphically inseparable. These occur entirely west of the Pecos 

River, so far as is now known, and between the Rio Grande and the 

thirty-second parallel. The only points where they have been positively 

noted are in the section of country from 30 miles west of the mouth of 

Delaware Creek to the mountains in the vicinity of El Paso, Tex., approximately following the thirty-second parallel. The United States 

and Mexican boundary survey party noted the occurrence of similar 

rocks along a section parallel to the foregoing, but from one to two 

hundred miles to the southward. In the report of the survey, however, 

which was printed a year or two before Dr. B. F. Shumard's application 

of the term Permian, these strata were termed Carboniferous. That 

they are identical there is little room to doubt.

Dr. Shumard pointed out many supposed resemblances to the socalled Permian of Kansas, and, if these are real, the two areas may be 

in some degree related.

Concerning the western extension of this region little is definitely 

known, but good authorities think there is reason to believe that it is 

more closely related to the Permo-Carboniferous, as described in Southern Utah and along the Grand Canon of the Colorado in Arizona, than 

to the Coal Measures of the Mississippi Valley and the Appalachian 

region.

It would of course be impossible to make any definite statements 

about the equivalents of trans-Pecos Permian, but it is highly probable 

that future investigation may demonstrate more clearly the above mentioned resemblance.

There is no reason to doubt that these rocks are a continuation of the 

Carboniferous sedimentation, and the remarks of James D. Dana1 concerning the Permian rocks of Kansas are equally applicable to them, 

to wit: They "are continuous with the Carboniferous without interruption or unconformability, and yet are referred to the Permian because 

they probably belong to the Permian in geologic time or at least its 

earlier portion." Whether these strata are of the Carboniferous or of 

the Permian, they present paleontologic and stratigraphic features of 

a purely transitional group. If it is granted, however, that these Texas 

and Kansas strata are the highest Paleozoic beds in this country and 

if it is shown that they contain a commingling of typical Carboniferous 

and Permian species, the term Permo-Carboniferous would be the most 

appropriate one that can be applied to them.

From all the literature we have upon the subject, it is evident that 

at the close of the time of the deposition of these trans-Pecos, Permo1 Manual of Geology, p. 369. 

(4A2)
HILL.] * PERMIAN OF TEXAS. 65

Carboniferous strata a great elevation Lad been attained and that they 

must have remained a portion of a continental area for some time, when 

subsidence ensued and the Mesozoic sediments were next deposited unconformably upon them.

The Permian of Cope and Ivis assistants. The second area in Texas to 

which the term Permian has been applied (which it should be remembered may belong to an apparently different horizon from the trails-Pecos 

region just described) is situated along the western boundary of the 

northern portion of the central area of Carboniferous exposures continuing into Texas from Indian Territory approximately along the line of 

the one hundredth meridian and extending southward to the thirtieth 

parallel.

Although this formation has frequently been alluded to in the writings of Prof. E. D. Cope, Jacob Boll, and others, nothing has been 

printed concerning its .stratigraphy or that of the surrounding country, 

except the fragmentary data which I have compiled and which I present in the following pages.

From Prof. W. F. Cummins,1 of Dallas, Tex., I have learned that the 

term Permian was first applied to the region by Prof.. William DeEyce, who occupied the office of State chemist during the war of the 

rebellion. Upon what geologic evidence Professor DeKyec called the 

region Permian I have been unable to ascertain. The printed statement from his pen is as follows: 2

To the Directors of the Texas Copper Mining and Manufacturing Company :

GENTLEMEN: In accordance with instructions received at Weatherford on the 12th 

day of Juno [no year is given], I hereby transmit to you tho following sketch of my 

researches in the Wichita copper region. The limited time which I was able to devote to it and the difficulties incident to an exploration of a comparatively uninhabited district will palliate its deficiency. After traversing tho Lias and Carboniferous series northward of Weatherford, I was agreeably surprised by a grand panorama of the outcropping Permian formation. This system is extensively developed 

in Russia between the Ural Mountains and tho river Volga, iu tho north of England, 

and iu Germany, whore it is mined for its treasures of copper, silver, nickel, and cobalt ores. It has not heretofore been known to exist in this State, or has been mistaken for tho Triassic system, which is overlying tho former to tho southeast. Its 

hills, which have been traced through Archer and Wichita Counties, resemble in shape 

the copper bearing and gossan crested upheavals in Ducktown, Tenn., but they 

are of different age and composition. They are nearly barren and, towering above 

the most beautiful niesquite prairies fringed by tho finely timbered tributaries of Red 

River, arc exceedingly picturesque. The members of tho Wichita system, as far as 

open to ocular inspection by outcrop or cross-cut, making allowances for climatic 

diflercuces, correspond closely with the lower strata discovered at Perm and Mansfield, 

but its mineral resources are evidently more promising.

1 This gentleman is the most thoroughly informed concerning the origin and history 

of the application of the term Permian, having been intimately conndcted with 

Messrs. Cope, DcRyee, and BolJ, who applied it so frequently.

2 Charter and by-laws of the Texas Copper Mining and Manufacturing Company. 

A history of the company. Letter from the Department of tho Interior, by Joseph S. 

Wilson, Commissioner. Prof. Wni. DeRyee's and W. F. C ummins's Geological Reports. 

Dallas, Texas, 1883, p. 6.

Bull. 45 5 (443)
66 PKESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OP TEXAS. IBULL.45.

Then follows a description of the mineral products of the formation, 

throwing no light on its age or stratigraphy.

The foregoing is the first and only description I have been able to 

find in print of the Permian of the Wichita region of Texas from the 

pen of the man who first applied that name to its geologic formation.

In the same pamphlet are geological reports from Prof. Jacob Boll 

and Prof. W. P. Cummins. The former says (p. 11) of the geologic age:

The company's land lies wholly within the transition period, especially within the 

lower Permian formation.

The latter says, however (pp. 8, 9):

I hud visited frequently before this trip the immediate country in which these 

lands are situated and had already determined the geological period to which Archer 

County belongs. Under an engagement with Prof. E. D. Cope, of Philadelphia, Pa., 

I have been for the last two years collecting fossil vertebrates of the Permian period 

in Archer and adjoining counties. Archer County is almost entirely within the lower 

Permian period. The rocks and clays of the Permian thin out to the south, where 

there is a fine presentation of the rocks of the upper Coal Measures. The Permian 

strata in Texas lie conform ably above the Carboniferous measures; in fact, the Permian and Carboniferous rocks constitute a continued series, so that it is impossible 

to determine just where one ends and the other begins; but I am certain the lands of 

the company are wholly within the Permian, for I have collected fossils on these, lands 

that are undoubtedly of that period.

Prof. Jacob Boll made the first intelligible announcement of the Permian in Northwest Texas in a brief sketch in the American Naturalist 

for 1880.1 He mentioned his explorations of the previous field season, 

which extended over the entire length of Little Wichita Eiver and its 

confluents. As the result of this six months of exploration he announced that he had discovered many new "plants and animals, consisting of petrified ferns, fishes, and reptiles." These, he asserted, all 

belonged to the transitional period, and especially to the lower and 

upper Permian.

Such is the meager testimony upon which the existence of the Permian in Texas was originally announced. I have been able to gather 

from a few scattering newspaper articles a better understanding of the 

region thus termed Permian. These articles were written by Prof. 

W. F. Cummins, an intimate friend and companion of Professor Boll, 

who accompanied him upon his journeys of investigation. The substance of the observations given in these newspaper articles is here 

reproduced somewhat at length, as the original publications are now 

inaccessible to the public.

In an article published in The Galveston Daily News, of December 

1,1884, Professor Cummins describes a geologic expedition into the 

country which Professor Boll was exploring at the time of his death, in 

1880, in the vicinity of the Double Mountain Pork of the Brazos Eiver, 

The principal object of Professor Cummins's journey was to discover the

»Vol. XIV, p.684, 1880. 

(444)
HILI..J PERMIAN OP TEXAS. 67

extent of the Permian formation in that part of the State. He had 

previously traced the formation from the Wichita Mountains, near Fort 

Sill, Indian Territory, southward to the South Fork of the Brazos liiver. 

From the fact that Professor Cummins was such an intimate friend of 

Professor Boll, it is inferred that they had the same ideas concerning 

the use of the term Permian. According to Professor Cummins it 

would appear that 

(1) On the west side of the Carboniferous exposure, from Fort Griffin 

to the Clear Fork of the Brazos, there is a series of limestone hills similar to those in Baylor and Throckmorton Counties, which he considered 

Permian from their stratigraphic position above the Coal Measures, although unable to determine from the poorly preserved fossils and " the 

character of the rocks."

(2) At the base of these hills, on the east side of California Creek, 

are the " red marls of the Permian,".

(3) Four miles farther weyt, still at the base of the limestone hills, is 

the vertebrate stratum, 1 which apparently has a wide extent and sel. 

doin exceeds two feet in thickness. Fossils are abundant in this stratum, 

" over fifty species heretofore unknown to science having been described 

from these beds " by Professor Cope.

(4) Twenty miles west of the above mentioned locality is Flat Top 

Mountain, presenting a vertical exposure of 250 feet. These rocks belong to the Permian, but are geographically too high for the vertebrate 

strata, only a few poorly preserved shells having been collected.2

(5) Twenty-five miles north of the above mountain is Kiowa Peak, 

situated at the junction of Croton Creek and the Brazos River. "A trip 

to the mountain disclosed the fact that it is of the Permian age. The 

whole mountain from top to bottom was a mass of saccharoidal gypsum." Fossil vertebrates were collected in the vicinity.

(G) At Double Mountain, to the south of the above mentioned locality, 

" the base of the mountain is gypsum, while at least two hundred feet 

above are Cretaceous, the Cretaceous shells being abundant and well 

preserved." Between the Permian and the Cretaceous beds is an unfossiliferous bed, 60 feet thick, similar to that u which immediately overlies 

the Carboniferous in Young and other counties, and which has hitherto 

been supposed to belong to tliat series of beds."

From the above data, together with my own observations in the region, the Permian of Messrs. Cope, Boll, and Cummins may be described 

as follows:

(1) A stratum of limestone, probably a part of that surmounting the 

true Carboniferous hills of Shackelford County, the Permian age of 

which is based upon its position, the fossils being pronounced indistinct 

by those who have seen them. This stratum of limestone is most prob-

'I have been informed that the vertebrate stratum is above the gypsum beds. 

2 No study has ever been made of the invertebrate fossils of the region.

(445)
68 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. I BULL. 45.

ably that described by Ashburner 1 as outcropping a few miles from Cummins's locality and belonging under the Brazos coal bed, the superincumbent strata probably being washed away by erosion. It may possibly be the White Limestone of Shumard's trans-Pecos region.

(2) The red marls so characteristic of that region of Texas and described by many travelers as occupying the gypsum beds. According 

to Professor Cummins, these are at the base of the Carboniferous hills 

above mentioned, indicating non-conformability and later deposition.

(3) A vertebrate bearing stratum, the relation to the foregoing not 

being known, the fossils of which liave been the basis of Professor 

Cope's term Permian.

(4) The well known gypsum strata of Texas, which have been so 

often mentioned in the literature of the State. These immediately underlie the typical Texas Cretaceous, a barren stratum of only a few feet 

intervening.

From the foregoing it will be seen that Professor Cope's Permian, as 

interpreted by Professor Cummins's observations, includes all the strata 

in Texas west of the central Carboniferous area from the late Carboniferous to the base of the Cretaceous, inclusive. It is doubtful whether 

this evidence, based upon a vertebrate bearing stratum and unaccompanied by any stratigraphic detail, is sufficient to justify the application of the term Permian to such an important and unexplored series 

of Mesozoic rocks.

The age of this series is still in the same condition of uncertainty as 

before Professor DeByee applied a name to it. The rocks may be Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, or Cretaceous, or all. It is certain that they are the representatives of the sedimentation of the entire 

Mesozoic age previous to the well authenticated Cretaceous. A little 

investigation would throw much light upon the subject.

Detailed comparison will now be considered unnecessary to show 

that there is no similarity between the two regions in Texas to which 

this term Permian has been applied. The Permian of Shumard, beyond 

the Pecos Eiver, whether Permian or Carboniferous, occupies a clear 

stratigraphic position; it is well marked by a characteristic fauna; 

there is no doubt as to where it belongs in the geologic succession. On 

the other hand, the Permian of Cope has as yet no well defined stratigraphic relations; it is involved in ambiguous uncertainty and its fossils are of a vague and indefinite character. There are no stratigraphic, 

lithologic, or paleoutologic points common to the two, and hence they 

have no established relationship whatever, the latter author having applied the name apparently without knowledge of its use by the other.

1 "Brazos coal-field,Texas," Trans. Am. Inst. MiningEng.,Vol. IX,pp, 495-506,1880- 

'8L
HILT,.] JURA-TRIAS OF TEXAS. 69 

THE JURA-TRIAS OR GYPSUM STRATA.

The few geologic observers \vho have traveled in Texas west of- the 

ninety-ninth meridian, south of the Forth Pork of the Canadian, have all 

commented upon the occurrence of immense gypsum deposits in that region, but so far as I am aware no one has endeavored to offer any hypothesis as to their formation or to interpret tbeir accompanying phenomena. 

Captain Marcy was the first observer to give this formation extensive 

notice, but he throws little light on its stratigraphic relations. He records numerous localities of occurrence, however, which are of value. 

He describes the strata as snow white gypsum, from fifteen to twenty 

feet thick,0 resting horizontally upon substrata of red clay and sometimes accompanied by red sandstone. Mr. Jules Marcou, who observed 

the same formation a few miles north of Captain Marcy's localities, in 

his notes conveyed the idea that these beds were white and rose colored 

gypsums; the beds were from one to twenty feet thick, a thin, argillaceous dolomite being found below them. Captain Pope also noted 

the occurrence of the same beds several hundred miles to the southwest, 

on Delaware Creek, where Dr. G. G. Shumard, who accompanied both 

him. and Captain Marcy as geologist, affirmed his identification. At 

various other points west of the central Carboniferous exposure, between Eed Eiver and the mountains west of the Pecos, these gypsum 

strata have been noted and many sections given. I have observed them 

at several of the localities mentioned, and in Jones, Haskell, Mitchell, 

and other counties. At every point these gypsum strata are of the 

same character, consisting of white or pink deposits of saccharoidal, 

hydrous calcium sulphate. Sometimes they are accompanied by deposits of magnesium, and other sulphates.

That these gypsum beds do exist; that they extend over a large area 

of country; that they do not consist of fragmentary crystals or impregnations, but are extensive, massive bedded strata, presenting a similarity of structure indicative of identical deposition, is now evident.

What bearing or relation they have to the geologic structure and history of Texas, is a most pertinent question. So far as I am aware no 

study has been made in this direction. Previous to 18GO, when these 

beds were attracting the greatest attention, the formation of gypsum 

was little understood, and there has been no interpretation of the bearings of this region upon onr American geology. The simple laws of 

chemical and physical precipitation of limestones, gypsums, and dolomites have bu«t recently become aids to the stratigraphist in his studies.

The fact that the typical strata of the peculiar Cretaceous rocks of 

Texas have been observed by Professor Cummins and others resting immediately upon these gypsum beds is evidence that their age is preCretaceous, and not the age of the Dakota group, as has recently been 

averred by students of the gypsum strata of Kansas. I also have reason to believe that some of the numerous " red beds " of the gypsum

(447)
70 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

region are Carboniferous, bnt that the age of the gypsum beds themselves is still unknown, except that they are intermediate between the 

Carboniferous and the Cretaceous, including what has been termed the 

Permian and the Jura-Trias. The intimate stratigraphy of these beds 

is not known, but it is probable that they are the eastern exposure of 

the immense deposits of the "red beds" observed throughout the Southwest, especially in New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.

THE SO-CALLED JURASSIC ROCKS OF TEXAS.

I have already shown (page 54) that Mr. Jules Marcou referred certain of the Mesozoic rocks of Texas to the Jurassic. Thes§ rocks were 

along the breaks of the Llano Estacado and along the Canadian Eiver 

near the boundary of New Mexico. I have also alluded to the fact that 

Mr. Marcou's opinions were attacked by nearly all of the leading geologists of the day,1 none of whom visited the region, except perhaps Dr. 

Kewberry. It was a warfare of theoretical discussion, for very little 

was known of the region. Mr. Marcou held to his point,2 and has not 

yet conceded that these strata are Cretaceous, as his opponents unanimously maintained. It is highly probable that the fossils Gryphcca 

dllatata, and Ostrea Marshii, upon the occurrence of which Marcou held 

his position, are the same species that Dr. Shurnard afterwards described as Gryplicca Pitcheri and Ostrea belliplicata, and now known to 

occur in the well defined Cretaceous of Central Texas j but it is certain 

that Marcou's allegations that these fossils are Jurassic were founded 

upon as logical grounds as those of his opponents, who, at a distance, 

made them equal to the Upper Chalk. It is probable that they are the 

continuation of Jurassic forms into the Lower Cretaceous, which Marcou called elsewhere "Neocoiniau;'7 and from later and more definite information it is very probable that Marcou's Jurassic is basal (not Upper) 

Cretaceous.

Another writer, Mr. K. A. Taylor, has been outspoken in referring the 

Cretaceous strata of Texas to the Jurassic. He thus expresses himself: 3

.The conformation of this great region seems to show unmistakably that it was 

once an inland sea, whose southern shore was probably at first along the Azoic hills 

below the Sau Saba, contracting gradually to the great backbone between [Fort] 

McKavett and Ktckapoo Springs, whose western shore extended at least thus far, 

and whose northern shore may have reached the Red River. Its eastern shore probably crossed the Colorado above tho mouth of the Coucho, extending northward to 

the limit of Texas and perhaps beyond. This immense basin slopes inward, from

1 See "Criticisms on Marcou's work by American, geologists," Am. Jour. Sci., 2cl ser.. 

XXVI, p. 323; 2d ser., Vol. XXVII, pp. 34, 134 ; 2cl ser., Vol. XXVIII, pp. 153, 256, and 

298; Report of U. S. Geological Survey, Vol. IX ; Report of U. S. and Mexican Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II; Pacific Railway Reports, Vo]s. II and III, quarto editions.

3 See Geology of North America, by Jules Marcon, Zurich, 1858, for gist of Mr. Marcou's defense.

a See The Coming Empire, or Two Thousand Miles iii Texas on Horseback, by H. 

F. McDauiels and N. A. Taylor, pp. 314, 315, 1878.

(448)
HILL.] CRETACEOUS OF TEXAS. 71

every direction, but its deepest parts are probably along the valleys of the Concho, 

not far from its southern border. The altitude of Fort Coucho is only one thousand 

nine hundred feet above tho level of the sea, while that of the great ridge below 

Kickapoo Springs and this on -which I stand must be quite a thousand feet higher. 

This sea in dryiug np left enormous deposits of gypsum, great beds and areas of salt 

and other alkalies, with which all tho streams that flow through, its ancient bed are 

more or less impregnated. This sea, as I believe, existed during the Jurassic age. 

The geologists who have written of this region, from observations at telescopic distance or no observations at allj have all assigned it to the Cretaceous : but my judgment is that there is little or no Cretaceous in it. I have seen no fossils to confirm 

this judgment; but this basin in general outline is totally unlike tho Cretaceous as 

developed in other portions of Texas or elsewhere. Nor has that formation in any 

part of the globe, if this be Cretaceous, developed such enormous deposits of gypsum 

and salt. If, then, it is Cretaceous, it is anomalous and without precedent.

The region he alludes to is the central or denuded area. He says:

This portion of Texas has never been geologically examined, except iu a most 

cursory way, and it is not always easy to distinguish Jurassic from Cretaceous fossils. 

'The late State geologist, Professor Buckley, rodo over it iii an ambulance, not deviating from the El Paso stage road.

Mr. Taylor has simply taken the work of subaerial erosion to be that 

of a lacustrine shore line, and his Jurassic sea is the denuded area of 

all the formations from the Carboniferous into the Cretaceous.

Although no one could say positively that there are no strata of the 

Jurassic age in Texas (for the problematic gypsum bearing red beds 

may be of that age), it is perfectly safe to say that none have as yet 

been demonstrated to exist.

THE CRETACEOUS.

The Cretaceous strata of Texas form by far the most extensive and 

important geologic deposit of that State. Fortunately for science the 

earliest writings on this particular formation were very explicit. Dr. 

Ferdinand Koeiner's Kreidebildungen YOU Texas and his other writings 

on the subject, however erroneous they may be in their deductions, are 

exceedingly complete and clear, so that in their perusal there can be 

but little doubt as to the exact opinions he entertained. He studied 

the Cretaceous rocks of the State from the marine Tertiary on the east 

to the Paleozoic rocks in the Llano County region, embracing a cross 

section of the entire thickness of the series. This was from. Seguin to 

the old Spanish fort on the San Saba. He also collected all possible 

legendary evidence and platted upon a map his ideas of the distribution 

of the Cretaceous strata in Texas. His descriptions and figures of the 

fossils of this formation remain to this day the most accurate and perfect of any paleoutologic literature of the country. The principal points 

he developed concerning this formation were as follows:

(1) He delineated its eastern border as extending from Presidio del 

Rio Grande northeastward MO miles to the Eed River, enumerating 

many intermediate points. This line is generally accepted to-day.

(2) He explained the peculiar lithologic characteristics a white 

chalky rock, with the appearance and consistency of the German Plii-

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72 PEESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

nerkalk, containing calcite crystals and flint nodules, a chalk marl, and 

a harder yellow limestone.

(3) He gave the first exposition of its organic remains and asserted 

their great similarity to the fauna of the Tipper Cretaceous of Southern 

Europe.

(4) He gave the fauna of the various strata and of different localities, describing 118 species, 58 of which were new to science.

(5) He noted the escarpment line, running from the neighborhood of 

San Antonio northward, via .New Braunfels and Austin, to an indeterminate point north of the latter city. He found the Cretaceous formation to extend in a comparatively narrow strip along the base of this 

escarpment, as well as far to the west along the surface of the tableland, of which it was the boundary*

He found well differentiated faunas in each of these topographic areas, 

and accordingly divided the formation in two great subdivisions, 1 to 

wit: Die Kreidebildungen am Fusse des Hochlandes (the Cretaceous 

formation at the foot of the highlands) and Die Kreidebildungen des 

Hochlandes (the Cretaceous of the highlands). He discussed the last 

named formation as the Cretaceous as he found it near Fredericksburg2 and the Cretaceous eight miles west of New Braunfels.3 Of 

these divisions and subdivisions he considered the Fredericksburg, or 

most western outcrop, the newest, and the Cretaceous at the foot of 

the highlands the oldest, and expressed the opinion that there could be 

no doubt that the latter extended under the highlands, instead of resting unconformably upon it, which recent investigations have shown to 

be the case.

^r. Roomer made no tabulated section of the Cretaceous of Texas, but from many 

statements in the text of his works it is evident that he had the following opinions 

of the subdivisions:

There are three general divisions of the Cretaceous in Texas, to-wit: The Cretaceous at the foot of the highlands; the Cretaceous of the highlands; the Cretaceous

of the hills near Fredericksburg.

On page 17 of Kreidebildungen ho says: "It is known that the hills in tho country to the north of Fredericksburg, on the Pedernales Eiver, are the latest of all the 

Cretaceous of the highlands of Texas." On page 18 of the same work, he says: "After 

these observations it cannot be longer doubted that the Fredericksburg strata belong 

to the youngest of the three accepted divisions of the Cretaceous period."

Concerning tho relation of tho Cretaceous of the highlands to that at their foot, he 

says (Texas, p. 379): "Before we can outer upon a discussion of the general significance of the Cretaceous strata in Texas wo must endeavor to investigate how the Cretaceous, which caps the high table-lands of Texas, consisting of a series of silicious, 

chalky strata, are related to tho earlier observed formation at tho ford of the Guadalupe, near New Brauufels, and at other points along the foot of the highlands, consisting of less firm white limestone and marls. The undoubted succession of these 

strata cannot bo seen plainly at New Braunfels.

"But, since the firmer strata of the highlands plainly occupy a much higher bluff, it 

is not to be doubted that hero at New Braunfels tho loose white chalk and chalk 

marls are the lowest and the firmer limestones of the highlands the highest."

2 Comancho Peak group of Shumard.

3 Washita Limestone of Shumard.

(450)
HILL.) CRETACEOUS OF TEXAS. 73

He intimated the westward extension to the Rocky Mountains of the 

Cretaceous formation, and showed that it differed materially in its organic and lithologic characters from what is now known as Meek and 

Hayden's section in the Northwestern Territories and that it bore slight 

resemblance to the Alabama section, based upon the occurrence of 

Hippurites. 1 He also asserted, upon the occurrence of identical organic 

remains, that this formation was equivalent to the Upper Chalk and displayed by both its paleontologic and its lithologic characters a resemblance to the Upper Cretaceous of Southern Europe in the countries 

bordering on the Mediterranean.

From the above facts, together with similar observations upon the 

relation of the Cretaceous of New Jersey with that of Northern Europe, 

he derived the following important conclusions concerning the Cretaceous of Texas : 2

(1) The rocks of the Cretaceous period in Texas, which are generally of a chalky

charaeter, have an extensive distribution, reaching from the Red River to the Rio 

Grande, comprising the greatest part of the highlands (central region) and the 

southern horder, even extending into the nndulati ng region (black prairie).

(2) The rocks vary greatly in character, those of the undulating region (black 

prairie region) consisting of white, chalky limestones of little firmness, and those of 

the highlands (centralregion) of a great system of strata consisting in part of very 

firm limestone layers, with inclosuvcs of (lint nodules and intervening layers of 

marls.

(3) The Cretaceous formations of Texas collectively belong to the Upper Chalk (i. e., 

the chalk above the Gault), and so much so that they may be referred to the horizons 

of the white chalk (Etage Se"nonien d'Orbiguy) and the upper part of the chloritic 

chalk (Stage Turonien'd'Orbigny) of Europe.

(4) The rocks of the Cretaceous formal ion in Texas, particularly those of the highlands (central region), upon comparison show a decided analogy with the Upper 

Cretaceous formations of Southern Europe, especially along the Mediterranean, 

which analogy is especially seen in the strong representation of the fossil family of 

Rudistes.

(5) The same physical differences in the natural conditions of the oceanic regions 

of the north of England and Northern Germany, on the one hand, and those of the 

Mediterranean on the other, that existed at the close of the Cretaceous age and that 

caused the variance in f.innas and lithologic characters of the synchronous deposits 

in these two regions, existed at the same time and do still exist in the seas of North 

America. From these facts it is evident that the .Cretaceous of New Jersey then boro 

the same relations to that of Texas3 as did that of the north of E in ope to that of the 

Mediterranean, and that the same northerly deflection of (ho isothermal lines from 

the eastern coast of North America to the western coast of Europe, was evident at 

so early a time in the earth's history as the Cretaceous.

The next observation of the Cretaceous strata of Texas was made 

by Dr. G. G. Shumard along the northern border of the State. He 

included the strata which his brother, Dr..B. F. Shnmard, afterwards 

incorporated in his section under the name of Washita Limestone. 

These he traced from Fort Washita (a few miles north of the present

1 Radiolites, as corrected in Kreidebilduugeu.

a Kreidebildungeu, pp. 25, 20.

3 The next to the latest of the European Cretaceous.

(451)
74 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

city of Denison) to east of Fort Belknap, in Young County. A comparison of his descriptions with those of Boeiner shows that the Cretaceous of this northern region of Texas has many paleontologic similarities with that described by Eoerner from an Indian camp on the 

Guadalupe, eight miles west of New Braunfels, but that their lithologic 

features vary greatly. 

Dr. G-. G-. Shumard said of these strata: 1

From this point [Forfc Washita], the Cretaceous rocks were found to extend uninterruptedly until we reached the southwestern boundary of the cross timbers in Texas. 

From the best information I was able to procure it constitutes the prevailing formation from Forfc Washita in the direction of Fort Towsoii for upwards of a hundred 

miles with an average breadth of fifty miles. It forms part of that extensive belt 

of Cretaceous strata that extends from Georgia to Texas, and which, from the character of its fossil fauna, is now regarded as the equivalent of the Upper Chalk of England, and with that division of the Cretaceous group to which d'Orbigny gives the 

name of 1'fitage Se"nonicn. Wherever sections of the strata were to be seen, they 

presented the following characters : Grayish yellow sandstones, with intercalations 

of blue, yellow, and ash colored clays and beds of white and bluish white limestone. 

The limestone reposes on the clays and sandstones. At some points it attains the 

thickness of a hundred feet, while at others it is quite thin and sometimes even entirely wanting. It is usually soft and friable and liable to disintegrate rapidly 

when exposed to the action of the weather. These Cretaceous rocks are often full of 

fossils. At Fort Washita the layers are crowded with Anancliytes, Hemiaster, Nucleolites, Ammonites, Ostrca, Pecten, &c., descriptions ami figures of which will bo found 

in Dr. B. F. Shumard's reports on the paleontology of the expedition. We saw here 

some specimens of Ammonites several feet in diameter and weighing between four 

and five hundred pounds.

Mr. Jules Marcou published a more accurate description of the Fort 

Washita strata and fauna a year after Dr. GL G. Shumard. He showed 

that in that region they were greatly denuded and covered to the east 

by higher strata like those of Arkansas and Mississippi. He asserted 

that the true age of the Fort Washita strata was Neocoinian.2

The first results of the expedition were published by Mr. Marcou,

prefaced with the statement that he had as yet neither the specimens 

which he had collected nor a good map of the country passed through, 

and since the time was very short in which he could make the required 

report he begged that its brevity and incompleteness be excused. In 

this paper he announced the existence of various formations which he 

more or less correlated with European strata. He described the red 

beds of the western portion of the Indian Territory as the Trias and 

discussed its divisions. The most important announcement, so far as 

concerns the geology of the Texas region, was as follows : 3

I have mentioned two points between Topof ki Creek and Anton Chico, where the 

Triassic rocks are covered by more modern formations. The first of these points is

1 Expl. Red River of La., 1852, by R. B. Marcy and Geo. B. McClellau, p. 158.

2 This is the only recorded reference of Texas Cretaceous strata to a position below 

the Gault.

3 Geology of North America, by Jules Marcou, p. 17, 1858. The wording varies from 

that used in the resume" printed as a part of House Doc. 129, 1854, Lieutenant Whippie's report, p. 40, and makes locations more explicit.

(452)
 -T,] CRETACEOUS OF TEXAS. 75

upon one of the tributaries of the False Washita River, Comet Creek (latitude 35° 32' 

21", longitude 99° 14' 40"), near our camp, No. 31, -where, upon the heights, are found 

the remains of beds of a limestone filled Avith shells which I connect with the Neocornian of Europe, or, in other words, with the Lower Division of the Cretaceous rocks. 

This limestone is only 5 feet thick ; it is of a whitish gray color, containing an immense quantity of Ostracea, which I consider as identical with the Exogyra ( Gryphcva) 

Pitcheri Mort. * * * having the closest analogy with the Exoyyra Couloni of the Neocomian of the environs of Neufchatel (Switzerland). As it is the first time theNeocomian 

has been recognized in America, where, until now, only the Green sand and Chalk 

Marl or Lower Chalk have been found, I will add that these strata ate much more 

developed at Fort Washita, where Dr. G. G. Shumard has made a collection of fossils such as Pecten quadricostatus, G-ryphwa Pitcheri, Cardium multistriatnm, Ammonites 

acuto-carinatus, Holaster simplex, all fossils or geneva characteristic of the Neocomiau 

of Europe. Further, at Fort Washita, the Neocomian is covered by the Greeusand, 

containing very fine Hemiastcr, large Ammonites Jlacidicosta, G-hjphcea sinuala varAmericana, Exogyra Texana, &c.

This Neocomian has nearly been destroyed and carried away by denudations, for 

it is only found on the summits of the hills, where it appecTirs like the ruins of [tncieiit

buildings; it occupies actually only a width of three or four miles. Probably at the 

time of the deposit it covered more space, but as at Fort Washita, where it has been 

very little denuded, it is only twenty-five or thirty miles wide. This shows it to have 

been but a narrow band in the immense basin, of the prairies. 1

The other reference of Mr. Marcou relating particularly to the geology 

of the State of Texas, although made, like the foregoing remark, upon 

strata continued beyond its border, was to the effect that certain other 

rocks on the Llano Estacado were Jurassic, as follows:

These rocks belong to the Jurassic or Oolitic epoch. Fossils are very rare in the 

sandstone and limestone; but the beds of blue clay which are found iu the middle 

of this formation contain in abundance a Gryphcea which has the greatest analogy 

with the Gryphaa dilataia of the Oxford Clay of England and France, and which I call 

provisionally Grypluza dilatata var. Tuciimcarii * * * and a very large Ostrea, having 

a resemblance to the Ostrea Marshii * * * of the Inferior Oolite of Europe. * * * 

This American. Jurassic presents, at least thus far, onepoint of considerable difference 

from the Jurassic of Europe and Asia, where such large quantities of Cephalopoda are 

found, such as Ammonites and Bclemnites, while here the Ammonites are only found in 

the Greensand and the Belcmnites in the Marly Chalk; and even there these fossils 

are never so abundant as in the corresponding strata of Europe.

In another preliminary paper, based upon specimens collected by 

Captain Pope's expedition, which he did not accompany, Mr. Marcou 

speaks as follows of the Cretaceous rocks in the vicinity of Preston. 

Tex., near the present site of Denison :2

Preston and its environs are formed of the Cretaceous rocks that extend along the 

Red River and the False Washita as far as the Canadian River. These rocks form also

1 Field observations by the writer, made and published since the manuscript of this 

bulletin was sent to press, show that this small and hitherto unappreciated description of Mr. Marcou vis really the most accurate that has ever been Avritten on the 

Cretaceous formations of the Indian Territory, and that it is equally applicable to 

those of Texas, of which they are the continuation.

? In House Doc. 129, 1834. Rep. of Exploration of a Route for the Pacific Railroad 

near the Thirty-second Parallel of Latitude from, the Red River to the Rio Graude. By 

Bvt. Capt. John. Pope, Chap. XIII, Geol. Notes of a Survey of the country comprised 

between Preston, Red River, and El Paso, Rio Grande del Norte, p. 25.

(453)
76 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OP GEOLOGY OF TEXAS.

the beds of the several tributaries of the Trinity River, especially of the Elm Fork of 

the Trinity, where your survey has found this formation very well developed, with 

numerous fossils. The Cretaceous consists at the base of yellowish gray limestones, 

filled with broken oysters, of which the most common species is the Gn/jj/ta'a Pitclieri; 

then pale grayish blue clays are superposed, containing numerous fossils, such as 

Exogyra Texana, Ostrea caririata, Pectcn quinquecostatus, Toxaster Texanus, &c. Upon 

these clays are sandy limestones, grayish white, containing large Ammonites and 

Baculites; the most common are Baculiles aspcr and several other new species that you 

have collected and which I will describe in the final report. The lower part, formed 

of limestone with Gryplicea Pitcheri and blue clay with Toxaster Texanus, corresponds 

with what is called by geologists the Neocomian formation, while the upper portion, 

containing Ammonites and Baculites, corresponds to the formation designated as Greensand and Marly Chalk.

The next cross section of the Cretaceous strata was made along the 

Rio Grande,by Arthur Schott,1 of the United States and Mexican boundary commission. This he describes as " a Cretaceous basin,which consists chiefly of strata of greensand, which extends from Las Moras to 

the vicinity of Eeynosa, and forms a belt of 380 to 400 miles in width" 

(p. 34) jn Texas and Mexico. In this basin he notes various lithologic 

characters and some slight local disturbances. In this region, "from 

Las Moras to the vicinity of Arroyo Sombreretillo, which is about ten 

miles above Laredo, lignite coal occurs frequently " (p. 35). " Prints and 

even remains of plants preserved in these coals indicate vegetable forms 

of the higher orders, as Gramiuese, and even dicotyledonous trees, such 

as willow and ash" (p. 35). He also notes the extension of these coals 

into the Santa Eosa mountainous regions of Mexico, where the strata 

are nearly vertical. The fossils, plants, and mollusks from these localities bear a close affinity to the coal bearing beds of the late Cretaceous 

of the Northwestern Territories, but their relation to that region as well 

as to the Cretaceous of the west of Texas is still problematic.

Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard was the next geologist to study the Cretaceous strata in the field. He had the advantage of previous observations as well as of resideuce in the State for a few years as State 

geologist (1858-1861). His writings give evidence of much labor, but, 

like Dr. Eoemer's, they are deficient in stratigraphy and are mostly 

of a paleontologic character. His section of the Cretaceous strata of 

Texas has been accepted to the present time by most writers. I quote 

the section with his immediate comments upon it :*

The order of succession and thickness of the different members of the Cretaceous, 

system, so far as observed in Texas, are expressed by the following section, which is 

believed to be in the main correct, although it is not improbable that further researches 

may render some slight modifications necessary.

1 Substance of the Sketch of the Geology of the Lower Eio Bravo del Norte, by Arthur 

Schott, asst. surveyor U. S. B. C., &c. Report of U. S. andMex. Boundary Surv. 

Vol. I, Part II, pp. 28-48,1851.

2 Trans. Acad. Sci. Saint Louis, Vol. I, pp. 582-589, 1856-1860.

(454)
HILL.J SHUMAKD'S SECTION OF THE TEXAS CRETACEOUS.

vsion.

-a

01

Salcareot

n

m

1

Upper Greta

eons.

u

CS

O)

u 

O

u 

<u 

IS 

o

ni

Subdivisions.

Comancho Peak group..

Fish bed.. ..............

Indurated Blue Marl. . . .

Washita Limestone .....

Caprotina Limestone...

Fish bed........ ........

Marly Clay or Red Kivor 

group.

Feet.

GO

300 

to 

400

100

to

120

CO

100

to 

120

50

55

80

150

Characteristic fossils,

Exogyra Tcxana, Grypbtea Pitcbori, Janira 

occidontalis, Cardium nmltistriaturn, Lima 

 Wacoensis, Ammonites Pedernalis, Natica 

Pedernalis, HeterasterTexanuSjHoleetypus 

planatna, Cyphosoma Texana, and Diadoma 

Texana.

Grvplitoa vesicularis, Exogyra costata, Radiolitos Austinonais, Nautilus Dokayi, BaClllites anceps.

Exogyra arietina, Dentalina.

Grypbaja Pitcheri var. Tucumcarii, Ostrea 

subovata (0. Marshii, Marc.), 0. carinata, 

Inoceramus problematicus, Hamites Freuionti.

Orbitolina Texana. 

Caprotiua Toxana. 

Natica acutispira.

Cypriua (?).

Ammonites Swallovii, A. Meekiauus, Ancyloceraa annulatus, Scaphites vermiculus, 

Baculitcs gracilis, Gervilia gregaria, Inocoramus capulus, fossil Mrood.

Eq. Nebraska section.

"Wanting.

3

 «*

i

CO

o

te

ei s

^

o !zs

Eq. Alabama section.

Wanting.

A

B 

C

Ml

.5

§

Eq. Pyramid Mt. sec

Wanting.

E

P

Gr

B

C 

D

A

I. UPPER CHETACEOUS OK CALCAREOUS DIVISION.

This division, in the eastern or settled portion of the State, attains a thickness of 

from 800 to 1,000 feet, but in its western extension reaches a much greater development. It presents the following subdivisions from above downwards: Caprina Limestone, ComanchePealc group, Austin, Limestone, Exogyra arietina marls, Washita Limestone, Inoceramusproblcmaticus beds, and Caprotina Limestone.

Caprina limestone. This is the uppermost recognized mernber of the series, and, 

although of no great thickness, has a somewhat extended geograp hical range. It is a 

yellowish white limestone, so metimes of a fin ely granular texture and sometimes 

made up of rather coarse, subcrystalline grains, cemented with a chalky paste. It

(455)
78 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. fByLL.45.

generally occurs in. thick, massive beds, and is capable of withstanding the action of 

the -weather to a greater extent than most of the members of the Cretaceous system. 

This formation is usually found capping the highest elevations, and its presence may 

be nearly always recognized, even at a distance, by the peculiar flat-topped and castellated appearance it imparts to the hills [bufctes]. According to Dr. Riddell, it is 

finely displayed along the bluffs of Brazos River, in Bosque, McLennan, and Hill 

Counties ; also along the Leon and Bosque Rivers. The summits of the remarkable 

elevation known as Conianche Peak, in Johnson County, and that of Shovel Mountain, in Buruet County, consist of this rock.

The fossils are chiefly Caprina, djtlierea, and Ammonites of undetermined species.

Comanohe Peak group. The Conianche Peak group, which next succeeds in descending order, is an important member of the series, and presents a greater development, both horizontally and vertically, than either of the others. It is made up of 

soft yellowish and whitish chalky limestone and buff and cream colored limestones 

of greater or less compactness. * * *

The best exhibitions of this formation that we have seen are at Conianche Peak, 

Shovel Mountain, and at Mount Bounell, near Austin.

Fossils: This group is remarkably rich in organic remains, a large portion of them, 

however, occurring usually as casts. The species most frequently observed are Exor/yra Texana, Gryph&a Pitclieri, Janira occidentals, Cardium mullistriatum, C. Texanum, 

C. Coloradoense, Pholadomya Sancti-Sabcv, Lima Wacoensis, Arcopagia Texana, Trigonia 

crenulala, Aslarte lineolata, Cardita erminala, Corbula occidental'^, Modiola contricecosteUata, Leda, Thracia, Ammonites aciiticarinatus, A. Pedcrnalis, Scolaria Texana, 

Phasianella tumida, Rostetyaria (Eulima Sh.") subfusifornis, Natica Pedernalis, Ncrinea 

acus, Avellana Texana, Turrilella scrialim-granulata, Csrithium Hosquense, Pleurotomaria 

(undet. sp.), Solarium (undet. sp.), Heteraster (Toxaster Roe.) Texanus, Holectypus 

planatm, Cyphosoma Texanum, and Diadema Texanum.

It is quite probable that this and the preceding subdivision of our Cretaceous system are not represented in Nebraska. We have collected more than fifty species of 

fossils from these beds and not a single one has been found identical with any of the 

numerous Nebraska forms that have been described by Messrs. Meek, Hay den, Hall, 

the writer, and others. Neither have we seen any paleontological evidence that the 

beds under notice are parallel with any of the members of the New Jersey and Alabama series, though it is not improbable that a closer study of the Cretaceous rocks 

in Alabama will show them to exist there.

Austin Limestone. This subdivision consists of cream colored ami bluish earthy 

limestone, and resembles in lithological features portions of the preceding group, but 

contains quite a different assemblage of organic remains. Some of the beds are sof^ 

and crumble readily upon exposure, while others are moderately hard and furnish a 

handsome building rock, which may be cut into almost any required shape with a 

common handsaw. The State house and several of the public buildings at Austin 

are constructed of this stone. This formation occurs at Austin and near San Antonio 

and New Braunfels. Dr. Riddell also recognized it in McLennan and Bosque Counties and Dr. G: G. Shumard in Graysou County, The greatest thickness observed is 

in the vicinity of Austin, where the beds are exposed to the height of about one hundred feet.

Organic remains: The most characteristic [fossils] are Inoceramus Uformis, Grypliasa 

vesicularis, Exogyra costata, Ostrea anomueformis, Area vulgaris, Madiolites Austinensis, Nautilus DeKayi (?), Baculites anceps, Helicoceras, Ammonites, Cassididus cequoreus, Hemiasterparastatus, and scales and teeth of fishes.

At the base we have shaly layers of dark bluish gray calcareous sandstone, containing numerous fish scales, teebh of Cor ax Iteterodon, Lamna Tcxana, and remains of 

Mosasaurus.

This assemblage of fossils establishes pretty clearly that the Austin Limestone repxeaents divisions A, B, and C of the Alabama section, as determined by Professor Win-

(456)
HILL.] SHUMARD'S SECTION OF THE TEXAS CRETACEOUS. 79

chell, which are regarded by Messrs. Meek and Hay den and Professor Hall as on a parallel with Nos. IV and V of the Nebraska section.

Exoyyra arieiina marl. This is an indurated blue and yellow marl, with occasional bauds of gray limestone and thin seams of selenite interstratified. It contains 

iron pyrites iu the form of small spherical masses and the fossils are also frequently 

studded with brilliant crystals of this substance. It is well exposed towards the base 

of Mount Bonnell, near Austin, where it presents a thickness of about sixty feet. It 

may also be seen to advantage near New Braunfels, in Comal County, at various 

points in Bell County, and Dr. G. G. Shumard found it resting upon the limestone of 

Fort Washita, in Arkansas.

Fossils: Exogyra arietina, Gryphaa Pitcheri, Janira Texana, and a small undescribed 

species of Dentalina. On Shoal Creek, near Austin, Exogyra arietina occur in the greatest profusion, the surface of the ground being sometimes literally covered with them.

Wasliita Limestone. This important member of our Cretaceous system is made 

up of a nearly white, yellow, gray, and blue limestone, some of the layers being moderately hard, while others disintegrate rapidly from exposure. This formation is exhibited at many localities in the State. Good exposures occur near Austin and in 

Grayson, Fannin, aiidEed River Counties. According to Dr. G. G..Shumard, it is 

finely developed at Fort Washita. * * *

Blue marl. This member was examined in Grayson County by Dr. G. G. Shumard, who describes it as an indurated, arenaceous marl of a schistose structure, with 

small nodules of iron pyrites and irregular masses of lignite disseminated through 

it. It has not been recognized south of Grayson County.

The fossils are Inoceramus problematicus, Ostrea, and Pligatula, of undetermined 

species. It also abounds in fish remains, the scales and teeth of which are sometimes 

elegantly preserved.

This subdivision should, perhaps, be grouped with the preceding. It corresponds 

with No. 2 of the Nebraska section.

Caprotina lAmeslonc. TkQ Caprotina Limestone, which follows in descending order> 

forms the base of the Upper Cretaceous and is composed of light gray and yellowish 

gray earthy limestone, with intercalated bauds of yellow marl and sometimes flint. 

It is exposed at the base of the hills near Comanche Peak and is seen underlying the 

Washita Limestone near the Colorado, at the foot of Mount Bonnell.

Fossils: The lower portion abounds in Caprotina Texana and the upper portion 

contains Orbitolina Texana, Panopcea Neioberryi, Cardium Brazoense, Area Proutana, 

Cytherea, Cyprina, Natica acutispira, Phasianella perovata, and Cerilhium, and Nerinea, 

of undetermined species.

II. LOWER CRETACEOUS.

For a knowledge of this division of our Cretaceous system I am indebted to Dr. G. 

G. Shumard, who has had excellent opportunities for examining it. He describes it 

as being composed of sandstones and gypseous and marly clays, the latter containing 

numerous septaria, filled with fossils. It is separable into two groups, namely, Arenaceous and Marly Clay or Red River group.

Arenaceous group.1 This member consists of light yellow and blue sandstone and 

beds of sandy clay, with crystals of selenito and some lignite. Its characters may be 

understood from the following section, taken by Dr. G. G. Shumard on Post Oak 

Creek, in Grayson County : 

No. 1. Soft, fine grained, yellow sandstone.................................. 10 feet.

2. Hard, fine grained, blue sandstone, becoming yellow upon exposure,

and sometimes passing into gritstone and fine conglomerate........ 5 feet.

3. Yellow sandstone, same as No. I........................ ............. 10 feet.

4. Indurated, blue, slaty clay, \vith crystals of selenite.................. 20 feet.

5. Thinly laminated layers, same as No. 2.............................. 3 feet.

' Dakota Sandstone. See Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. II, p. 140, quoted, p. 176.

(457)
80 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [DULL.45.

Fossils: The upper part is characterized by Ostrea lellarugosa [0. bellipUcataf], 

Ostrea congesta, Lucina, Plicatula, a small species of Cyprina (?)', fossil wood, and occasionally obscure impressions of plants. The Ostrea occurs in distinct bands and is 

extremely abundant. The lower beds have yielded an undescribed species of Lingula 

and abound in fish remains which Dr. Leidy refers to the following species : Ptycliodus mammilaris, Lamna comprcssa, L. Texana, Galeoccrdo pristodonius, and Carcharodon. * * * . With regard to the Nebraska equivalent of our Arenaceous group, I think there 

can scarcely be a'doubt that it represents No. 1 (perhaps the upper part) of the section of Messrs. Hall, Meek, and Haydon. * * »

Marly Clay or Red River group. This member immediately underlies the fish bed 

of the Arenaceous group and is described by Dr. G. G. Shumard as "a blue, marly 

clay occasionally variegated with red and brown, and with thin bands of sandstone 

interstratified. The clay contains crystals of eelenite, flattened nodules of compact 

brown and blue limestone, and septaria of compact, blue limestone, reticulated with 

brown, yellow, and purple spur. The nodules occur in the upper, and the soptaria 

towards the base of the formation. The best exposures of the group are in Grayson, 

on Post Oak, Choctaw, and Big Mineral Creeks, where sections of from fifty to sixty 

feet have been measured. It occurs also on Red River, Fannin and Lamar Counties. 

The estimated thickness of the group in this part of tho State is about one hundred 

and fifty feet, but we have not seen the base of the formation."

'Fossils are exceedingly abundant in the septaria and nodules, and so far as I have 

been able to learn they belong to hitherto undescribed species. From the collections 

of Dr. G. G. Shumard I have been able to characterize tbo following: Ammonites Sivallovii, A. inaiquiplicatus, A. Meekiartus, A. Graysonensis, Ancyloccras annulatus, Scaphites vermiculus,Baculites gracilis, Cytlierca Lamarensis, Tapes Hilgardi, Gervilia gregaria, 

Nuculo, Haydeni, Panopcea sub-parallela, Corbula Grayitoncnsis, C. Tuomeyi, Inoceramus 

capulus, and Inoceramus, n. sp. Fossil wood is also quite common at several of the 

localities visited.

The section contains what have been called grave discrepancies by 

another writer, 1 and from my residence in the State I think the criticism 

well founded. Why these errors appear in Shnmard's section is easily explained. It is a composite one, made up at the city of Austin from the 

observations of three geologists working in widely separated portions 

of the State, and influenced by his predilection towards Eoemer's opinions. His Comanche Peak series is evidently the same as Eoemer's 

Fredericksburg subdivision, his Austin Limestone is Eoemer's Kreidebilduugen am Fusse des Hochlandes, and his Washita Limestone 

is the same as described by his brother and Mr. Jules Marcou. The 

lower part of his section is based upon the observations of his brother 

along Bed Eiver, where the lithologic and paleontologic variations are 

different from those of synchronous formations of other parts of the 

State. Dr. Eiddell, assistant geologist, studied the formations in 

Bosque County, while Dr. B. F. Shumard himself studied them at 

Austin. He arranged, as he thought the data warranted, these observations of his brother on Red Eiver, those of Dr. Eiddell's in Central Texas, and his own and Dr. Eoemer's near Austin to make up

1 See " Notes on the Cretaceous and Carboniferous rocks of Texas, by Jules Marcou," Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. VIII, pp. 86-97, 1861-1862.

(458)
HILL.] CRETACEOUS OF TEXAS. 81

the published section. From this section, by careful comparison of 

Boeiner's work, it will be seen that he had the same fundamental 

opinion, to wit, that the Cretaceous of the lower land east of Austin 

extended under that of the table lands to the west, and that the tops 

of the hills (buttes) farther inland was the newest Cretaceous of the 

State.

Upon .the publication of this section, Mr. Jules Marcou wrote a criticism of the same, 1 iu which he pointed out many discrepancies in sequence of the groups and rearranged Dr. Shumard's section upon his 

own data, as follows :

Upper Crotaccona or Seuouian.

Middle Crotaccoua or Greensand and Turoiiian.

Lower Cretaceous or 'Aptiau 

and Neocomian.

Austin Limestone. 

Fish bed in sandstone (Lamna 

'J'exana). 

Blue Marl, with Inoccramus

2>nUcmaticus.

Arenaceous group with Ostrea 

conyesta. 

Fish bed, Lamna Texana &c.

Marly Clay or Eed River group. 

Caprina Limestone. 

Comaiiche Peak group (superior part with Exogyra Texana). 

Exofjyra arietina marl.

AVashita Limestone (comprising the inferior part of the Comancbo 

Peak group, with Gryphcea, Pitcheri). 

Caprotina Limestone.

Trias or Carboniferous.

From my own observations in the State I am inclined to believe, 

notwithstanding the disagreement with older geologists, that Mr. Marcou's deduction is more in accordance with the actual relations of the 

strata than any other published and especially than those of Boeiner 

and Shuinard.

In the following years (1861, 1862) Dr. B. F. Shumard announced the 

occurrence of two more groups of the Cretaceous in Texas. The first of 

these was the Eipley group of Mississippi, which he announced before the Academy of Science of Saint Louis to have been found in 

Navarro County, Tex. The other was the Dakota sandstone, which he 

reported from Grayson County. He studied the first, named group 

and identified over twenty species common to the Tippah County (Mississippi) beds and the Navarro County (Texas) beds. Concerning the 

alleged occurrence of the Dakota sandstone in Grayson County, he said 

that he based his opinion upon the occurrence of dicotyledonous leaves 

in the ferruginous sandy strata there,2 of which he would speak further

. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. VIII, pp. 86-97, 1861. 

2 You will, perhaps, remember the statement in my paper on the Cretaceous strata 

of Texas (p. 589 of Transactions) that, although we had not succeeded in finding 

dicotyledonous leaves in the lower Cretaceous marls and sandstones of Texas, as has

Bull. 45 6 (459)
82 PKESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

at a future day, an expectation not fulfilled. These leaves, however, are 

now thought to be from the lower cross timbers strata, which are on a 

direct line of geographic continuity with the alleged Dakota of Kansas.

Dr. Shumard died without incorporating these later additions into 

his geologic sections. If he had done this it would have been necessary to revise the relative position of the strata entirely. He deserves 

credit, however, for some points which are not dwelt upon in his writings; one of these is the correlation of the groups of other States with 

those of Texas. He was the first to prove conclusively that the Cretaceous of the other Gulf States1 was represented in Texas and also to 

intimate the occurrence there of the Dakota sandstone.2

Dr. E. H. Loughridge, in his sketch of the geology of the State,3 

shows clearly the occurrence of the Gulf States formation along the 

eastern portion of the Cretaceo us areas of Texas, and traces it to the 

line of the Bed Eiver, north of which it had been identified and studied 

by D. D. Owen, in Arkansas, many years before.

From the observations of all these geologists the following is at 

present known concerning the Texas Cretaceous:

(1) It has been studied hastily and independently along three widely 

separated, parallel cross sections, to wit, by Dr. G. G. Shumard and by 

Jules Marcou along the northern borders, by Dr. Ferdinand Eocmer and 

by Dr. Benjamin F. Shumard in the central (Austin and New Braunfels) region, and by Arthur Schott along the Eio Grande. The section as studied by the last mentioned, being the continuation of Mexican geologic features into Texas, has but slight resemblance to the 

Cretaceous of the rest of the^State, so far as it has been studied.

Concerning the rest of the State two diverse opinions have been presented, especially concerning the order of sequence and the correlation 

of the Cretaceous strata of most of the State of Texas, one of which is 

bised upon observations of a cross section south of Austin across the

been done by Meek and Haydeii in Nebraska and Kansas and Newberry in New 

Mexico, they would probably be found in this position. I have now the pleasure of 

informing you that further explorations in Lamar County, near the Red River, have 

resulted in the discovery, by Dr. G. G. Shumard, of numerous impressions of leaves in 

alternations of yellowish sandstones and bluish shales which are believed to occupy 

a position below the Marly C lay or Eed River group of my section, and which we regird as being on a parallel with the lower beds of No. 1 of the Nebraska section. 

The collection made by Dr. G. G. Shnmard contains several species of monocotyledonous leaves which appear to belong to the genera Salix, Ilex, Laurus, &c. I am 

unable to determine positively the generic affinities of these leaves, for.want of proper 

works of reference, but shall submit the collection to a competent fossil botanist, and 

think they will be found analogous to those discovered by Meek and Hayden at the 

base of thoir Nebraska section. (Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. II, p. 140. Read 

Nov. 5, 1860.)

1 Trans. Acad. Sci.-Saint Louis, Vol. II, p. 152,1861, andProc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 

Vol. VIII, pp. 188-205, 1861.

8 Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, Vol. II, pp. 140, 141.

3 Tenth Census: Report on Cotton Production in the United States, Vol. V, Part 

I, pp. 653-829. Report on the Cotton Production in the State of Texas, 1884.

(460)
MILL.] CKETACEOUS OF TEXAS. 83

eastern escarpment of the central region while the other is based upon a 

cross section along the northern border of the State. The first of these 

opinions, formulated by Eoemer and reiterated by Dr. B. P. Shumard, 

makes the eastern division of the Cretaceous (the Gulf series) the oldest 

and the northwestern the newest, and correlates the whole with European strata later than the Gault.

The other opinion, and the one hitherto least accepted, partially on 

account of its manner of presentation, is that the Cretaceous strata are 

exposed in descending series in going from east to west, and that the 

limestone group is of the JSIeocomian age instead of Senonian, or White 

Chalk, as asserted of these strata farther south by Eoeiner and the Shumards. This is the opinion of Jules Marcou, as briefly expressed ia 

1S5S, and I think it the most plausible.

Concerning the extent of this formation in Texas much has been 

given. Roomer platted the eastern bouudary from Clarksville, Ked

Eiver, to near Laredo, on the Rio Grande. This boundary has not been 

changed by more recent observations, but rather confirmed. 1 The 

Cretaceous has been reported west of this line far beyond the western 

boundary of the State, being interrupted only where it has been denuded 

from above the Paleozoic and early Mesozoic areas.

It is also very well demonstrated that the eastern portion of this Cretaceous is a continuation of the Eotten Limestone and probably other 

subdivisions of the Cretaceous from the other Gulf States; that in the 

central portion of the State there is a lower division from which the 

overlying strata have been eroded, which is unique and probably older 

than the marine Cretaceous of the United States and different from 

them; and tbat along the lower Eio Grande there is an elongated area 

of coal bearing strata, which Mr. Schott denominates late Cretaceous 

and which has marked paleoutologic affinities with the Upper Cretaceous 

of the Northwestern States and Territories.2

1 Dr. R. PI. Longhridge givestho eastern boundary of the Cretaceous a great western 

deflection from San Antonio to Eagle Pass. This is a mistake, founded primarily on 

an error of Conrad's, whereby he gave the wrong localities to certain Tertiary fossils, 

now known to be from the vicinity of Laredo. See p. 85; also, Tenth Census, Vol. 

V.-Part I, Report on Cotton Production in Texas.

2 There is reason to believe that these late Cretaceous coals underlie much of the 

Rio Grande, trans-Pecos, and Upper Canadian regions of the State. They have been 

recently reported all along the Rio Graudo between Laredo and El Paso, at White 

Oaks, ISIo^v Mexico, and at other places. They are probably the same coals of which 

Dr. Edward Hitchcock speaks iu his Report accompanying Exploration of the Red 

River of Louisiana in the year 1852, by Randolph B. Marcy, captain Fifth Infantry. 

1854,33d Congress, 1st session, House of Reps. Ex. Doc., Appendix D, p. 144. He says: 

" I ought to have mentioned that among the specimens iu my hands is one of lignite, 

collected July 3 near the sources of Red River, not far from the Llano Estacado 

and within the limits of the gypsum deposit to be described. It is an exceedingly 

compact coal and burns without flame, emitting a pungent but not bituminous odor. 

It is doubtless Tertiary or Cretaceous, but I think, if in large masses, it might easily 

be mistaken for anthracite."

(461)
84 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OP GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45. 

THE SO-CALLED LAKAMIE.

No observations of the true brackish water Laramie formation, which 

marks the transition from Cretaceous to Tertiary in the West, have 

been recorded from Texas. The term has been misapplied 1 to the lignitic strata at the base of the Gulf Tertiary in Eastern Texas, but this is 

not the true Laramie of the West. That the same species of vegetation 

grew along the coast of the marine waters of the old Gulf of .Mexico as 

well as of the great Laramie basin in the interior of the continent is more 

than probable, but the term Laramie is a local group name and is not 

applicable to the synchronous subdivisions of the marine Cretaceo-Tertiaries.2

That the true Laramie may occur in the traus-Pecos region is not improbable, but it has not as yet been so recorded.

THE TEKTIARY.

. But one area of Tertiary formations has been positively identified in 

Texas, and that is the continuation of the Gulf States (marine) Tertiaries from Louisiana and Arkansas into its northeastern borders. Prof. 

Angelo Heilprin3 has said nearly all that can be said of them. He 

remarks:

The Tertiary formations of tins State are yet too imperfectly known to admit either 

of an absolute localization of the various boundary lines or of an accurate subdivision into the minor geological groups. It may be safely assumed, however, from the 

geological conformation of the neighboring States, that all, or nearly all, of the divisions ranging from the Eoliguitic to the Grand Gulf, inclusive, are represented, and 

that the positions occupied by these follow each other in regular succession, beginning with the oldest, from the interior coastward, with a general dip to the southeast or east. The geological notes on this region by Schott, Hall, and Conrad, and of 

Shuuiard and Buckley are exceedingly meager and unsatisfactory, and give us barely 

more than a general idea as to where the Tertiary formation exists.

According to Dr. Loughridge, who, more than any other geologist, has closely investigated the outcrops of the different formations occurring throughout the State, 

the Cretaceo-Tertiarv boundary line starts on the northeast from the Red River at a 

point a few miles above Texarkana, on the Arkansas frontier, and, taking a general 

southwestern direction, passing at or near Clarksville, Red River'County; Corsicana, Navarro County; Marliu, Falls County; Cameron, Milam County ; Elgin, Bastrop County; Seguiu, Guadalupe County; and the northwest corner of Atascosa, 

crosses the Rio Graude at about the mouth of Las Moras Creek.

Professor Heilpriu also says (p. 38) that the " westerly deflection, indicated as beginning a few miles south of San Antonio and extending 

to the Eio Graude, can scarcely be said to be definitely p'roved as yet, 

although Loughridge affirms that 'the glaucouitic sandstones mentioned

1 On the Zoological Position of Texas, by Edward D. Cope. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., 

No. 17, p. 5, Washington, I860.

2 In justice to Professor Cope it is but fair to state that this is more of a difference 

of opinion as to nomenclature than as to geologic time.

3 Contributions to the Tertiary Geology and Paleontology of the United States, by 

Angelo Heilprin, pp. 37 et seq., 1884.

(462)
HILL.] TERTIARY OF TEXAS. 85

by Mr. Schott as occurring along the river [Eio Grande] from the Cretaceous rocks at the mouth of Las Moras Creek, north of Eagle Pass, 

southward to Eonia, near Eio Grande City, are doubtless of Tertiary 

age.' Further evidence is needed on this point, however, although some 

confirmation of the supposition is lent by the discovery of Tertiary fossils (Cardita planicosta among others) in a locality (Arroyo las Minas), 

situated between El Paso and Leon.'n

I have carefully studied the literature and the facts concerning this 

supposed western deflection of the Tertiary strata as reported by Loughridge in Texas and accepted by McGee in his map of the United States 

accompanying the Fifth Annual Eeport of the TJ. S. Geological Survey. 

The first recorded boundary between the Cretaceous and the marine 

Tertiary was that made by Eoemer in his writings before mentioned. 

It was practically the same as that of Loughridge, without this western deflection, and made the Cretaceous end on the Eio Grande near

Presidio del Eio Grande, a short distance above Laredo. The work 

of the United States and Mexican boundary survey is misinterpreted 

through a small error of Conrad, who in his published description 

states that the Cardita planicosta comes from Arroyo las Minas,- a 

small creek in what is now Zavalla County. The label pasted upon 

the original type specimen of this fossil,2 in Mr. Arthur Schott's handwriting, as identified by his son, Albert L. Schott, reads as follows: 

"Cretaceous ridges next to the Arroyo Sufre, in the vicinity of Mier, 

Mexico. Schott, October, 1853." Hence it is presumable that this 

fossil is valueless for determining the alleged western deflection. Dr. 

Lougheidge's other data for making this change in the accepted map is 

his belief that certain strata described by Schott as Cretaceous are Tertiary. I have described these strata on page 7G, and from personal observation, as well as from much paleontologic material in the U. S. National Museum, I know them to be Cretaceous. Among the fossils described from them by Conrad, and with locality labels pasted upon them 

by Schott, are the following from Jacuu, three miles east of Laredo: 3 

Ammonites pleurisepta, Exogyra costata, Inoceramus cripsii Mantell, I. 

Texanus Conrad, Ostrea cremUimargo Eoemer, Dosina, Turritella, Natica, 

and Ammonites pleurisepta Con.4 These fossils are positively known to 

belong to the Cretaceous, and the locality where they occur is one hundred and fifty miles east of the boundary of that formation as deflected 

by Dr. Loughridge.

The Exogyra costata and Inoceramus cripsii are characteristic fossils 

of the Upper Cretaceous of all the Gulf Slates, and the Ammonitespleu1 Report U. S. and Mex. Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 141 and 161.

2 Now in collection of the U. S. National Museum.

3 Report on U. S. and Mex. Boundary Survey, Vol. I, Part II, p. 143.

4 Ibid., p. 159. This species is described under the name of Ammonites pleurisepta, but 

figured (Plato XV) as A. peilernalis.

(463)
86 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL. 45.

risepta of Conrad is a typical fossil of the peculiar formation which Mr. 

Schott described and is now known to be very late Cretaceous. Even 

were it not for the original label pasted on the Cardita planicosta, alleged to be from Arroyo las Minas, a glance at the fauna among which 

it is placed by Mr. Conrad1 would be sufficient to show that it is a stray 

specimen, for the rest are all typical Cretaceous forms. Instead of this 

western deflection of the Tertiary in Texas I am of the opinion, from the 

evidence we have, that it is many miles to the east of Lareclo.

This eastern or Gulf Tertiary has been recognized as such by several 

authors under many names. Eoerner noted the presence of beds similar to those at Fort Claiborne, Ala., and after a revision of all the 

printed evidence it is to be doubted whether much more is known about 

the 'Tertiary in Texas than is implied in his remark and noted on his 

map, to wit:

It is hardly to be believed that this Tertiary formation of Texas is to be found 

exclusively in the country of the Brazos [where he observed it]. It occupies a very 

similar zone to the Tertiary of Alabama, Mississippi, and other States, and like it, 

at most places is at the foot of the Cretaceous to the west and covered to the east by 

diluvial strata. (Texas, p. 372.)

Several other areas of the Tertiary have been reported besides this 

continuation of the Gulf group. The principal of these are the two 

anomalous forest regions known as the cross timbers. Dr. S. B. Buckley calls these Tertiary, Miocene, Eocene, &c. in his reports, but his evidence, as stated, is not such as to warrant his deductions.

The stratigraphy of the Tertiary in Texas has been neglected entirely, and we have nothing concerning its exact relation to the Cretaceous below or to the later formations. Neither is there any information concerning the stratigraphy of the group itself. In fact, the development of these strata is still to be made. All that can possibly be 

said of it at present is that it possesses certain broad resemblances to the 

Tertiary of the other Gulf States and that it consists of unstudied strata, 

lignitic at the base and ferruginous higher up. It rests upon the Cretaceous strata, but no evidence has been taken to ascertain whether it 

is simply a continuation of the sedimentation of that period or whether 

there is a non-conformity between them. Neither is there any evidence 

concerning its relation to the post-Tertiary strata.

QUATERNARY AND OTHER POST-TERTIARY STRATA.

Very little is known concerning the surface geology of Texas or of the 

later formations, but it is apparent that the great deposits of the coastal 

region result from the erosion of the interior surface. Dr. Ferdinand 

Eoemer wrote the most of what we now know of these formations. He 

divides the coastal region of Texas into the alluvial and the diluvial region and describes the character of the drift and depositions of each.

1 Ostrea carinata Lam. ; 0. anomici'formis Eoemer, Nc-itMa occidcntalis Con. Report 

U. S, and Hex. Bound. Survey, Vol. I, Part II, p. 143.

(464)
HILL.] SUMMARY OF GEOLOGIC RESULTS. 87

He showed that there was considerable very recently made land extending for a varying distance inland from the coast, and that it was so 

recent in deposition that it contained at Houston, 50 miles inland, the 

fossil shells whose living representatives are found in the bay of Galveston. He also describes with much clearness certain of the older drifts, 

but his descriptions are purely local. Dr. K. H. Loughridge notes the occurrence of Quaternary stratified drift as composing the arenaceous, cross 

timber region of Central Texas, and other writers have noted the drift 

of the lower Brazos, Ked, and Colorado Eivers. The various papers of 

the United States and Mexican boundary survey reports describe several peculiar drift formations of the Rio Grande along its course from 

its mouth to El Paso. The presence of a line, decomposing mass of pebbles over the gypsum beds has also been mentioned by writers on that 

region. In fact, the literature is full of fragmentary reference to local 

superficial formations, which we arc left to presume to be of any age we 

please, but absolutely nothing has been done towards classifying these 

phenomena. It is well known that the " red rises" of the great rivers 

of the Texas region have been carrying down their loads of sediment, 

taken from the receding escarpment of the plains among which they 

rise, and depositing them in the lagoons along the coast. The richest 

sugar lands of Louisiana and Texas have been built up in this manner, 

in almost recent times, and the vastness of the process is grand and impressive beyond expression. No other theme is so promising to the future geologist in the region under discussion as the subject of the laws 

of distribution and the age of the post-Cretaceous formations of Texas

GEOLOGICAL DEDUCTIONS.

From these fragmentary writings we can only make the following 

general deductions concerning the geology:

The Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian strata probably underlie the State 

and extend as far west as the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Upon 

these are deposited Lower Silurian rocks, with occasional outcroppings 

in the limited central and trans-Pecos areas. The Devonian strata are 

absent. The Carboniferous strata present two phases and are in two 

widely separated areas, the first being a continuation of the Missouri 

coal fields through Indian Territory into Northern Texas and the other 

being a continuation of the non coal bearing strata from the great West. 

Little is known of the intimate relations of the strata between the well 

defined Carboniferous and the Cretaceous, but there are many ideas 

concerning them: (1) The older Mesozoic, consisting of an extensive 

deposit west of the ninety-ninth meridian, extending all the way, perhaps, from the typical Coal Measures of the Carboniferous to the well 

defined fossiliferous lower Cretaceous. This group comprises the gypsum bearing strata, and has been called in our literature Permian, 

Permo-Carboniferous, Triassic, Jura-Trias, and the Dakota group of

(4C5)
88 PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF GEOLOGY OF TEXAS. [BULL.45.

tke Cretaceous. The minute stratigraphy of these strata has never been 

studied and their exact age is still an unsolved problem. (2) The fossiliferous Lower Cretaceous, being easily distinguished everywhere by 

its unique lithologic and paleontologic characters. It overlies nearly 

all of the older formations, the latter being exposed usually by the erosion of its strata. Concerning the character and extent of this formation very little is known, and it is only determinate by the peculiar 

individuality of its fauna and the interpretation of Mr. Jules Marcou's 

description of a small local outcrop. It can only be said that this formation does exist, that it is older than all writers except Mr. Marcou 

have made it, and that its extent seems to be confined to the portion of 

.Texas west of the black prairie region and indeterminately southward 

into Mexico. The higher divisions of the Cretaceous immediately overlie this. These have been traced directly from the older Gulf States, 

and, like the succeeding Tertiaries, seern to represent the earlier stages 

of the contracting shores of the present Gulf of Mexico. The Tertiaries 

are generally conceded to be merely a continuation of the Tertiaries 

of the older Gulf States, with local variations. The coast of the Gulf 

of Mexico of to-day is a continuation of the results of the same forces 

in operation since Middle or early Cretaceous time, so far as can be 

ascertained by interpretation of all the evidence.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

Only a word is necessary to express the net results of all the observations described in the previous pages. The following facts are obvious :

(1) There is no accurate knowledge of the essential topographic features of Texas upon which geologic work can be based.

(2) The geologic work has been fragmentary, unconnected, uncorrelated, and unsystematic throughout. It has been mostly descriptive 

paleontology instead of strati graphic work.

(3) There has been very little accurate stratigraphic work recorded.

(4) Most of the literature deals with broad generalities rather than 

with specific description.

It is evident that very little of the work deserves to be classified 

above preliminary reconnaissance and that the need of the future is apparent: the careful study of typical sections by combined stratigraphic 

and paleontologic data, the tracing of the extent and variation of these 

features, and, first of all, a correct and reliable topographic survey of 

the entire State. There is not on record a clear and intelligible section 

of a single local area.

In the preceding pages I have tried to prepare the way for honest 

students to take up the work without long years of weary research in 

endeavoring to find out what has been done in this great region. No 

portion of our country is more pregnant with unstudied features of

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HILL.] . GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 89

geologic interest. Important relations in the history of the continent 

have been traced to its borders on every side and stopped there by a 

want of minute knowledge of its formations. To the student who will 

undertake the solution of a single one of the questions involved the reward will be results of incalculable value. Among these problems 

are the history of the river systems, the elevation of the land features from the sea, the effects and the results of subaerial erosion, the 

intimate features of the stratigraphy, the tracing of ancient interior 

continental shore lines, the history of the recession of the escarpment 

lines (especially that of the Llano Estacado), the building up of the 

coast by the sedimentation resulting from this erosion, the accurate enumeration and distribution of typical faunas, and the stratigraphic position of its fossils, and, chief of all, the deduction from these scientific 

determinations of those economic results appertaining to agriculture, 

industry, aud commerce without which the true possibilities and impossibilities of the great region will forever remain unknown and its development depend upon blind and costly experiment.

(467)

INDEX.

A.

Page. 

Abert, J. W., journey of, through Texas................................... 20

Adams, W. H., paper on. coal bearing strata of Texas by ................... 44

Archean and earlier Paleozoic strata of Texas .............................. 55-57

Artesian well experiment.................................................. 37

Ashburner, C. A., study of coal fields of Texas by.......................... 48

section at Fort Belknap by ............................................ 58,59

on age of Carboniferous limestone in Texas............................. 62

Austin, S. F., map of Texas by ............................................ 12

Austin limestone....,...................................................... 78,79

B.

Blake, W. P., work of, on Pacific Railway survey reports................... 26,27

Boll, J., fossil collections of, in Texas....... .............................. 44

on age of Permian in Texas ........................................... CO

Bracht, Victor, work by, in encouragement of German immigration to Texas. 15 

Broadhead, G. C., aid acknowledged .....................................28, note

Bryan, F. N., survey of Texas by .......................................... 22

Buckley, S. B., employment of, on First Geological Survey ................. 32-86

appointment of, as State geologist on Second Geological Survey......... 40

work of, on Second Geological Survey ....... ......................... 40,42

on occurrence of coal in Texas......................................... 59

Burleson, R., work of, on Second Geological Survey........................ 40

C.

Caprina limestone ........................................................ 77,78

Caprotina limestone....................................................... 79

Carboniferous of Texas. ................................................. 17, 57-62

Central Carboniferous area................................................ 58,59

Coke, Richard, veto of appropriation to Geological Survey by............... 42

Comanche Peak group.................................................... 78

Conrad, T. A., geologic work of, in Texas.................................. 24

Cope, E. D., studies of zoology and paleontology of Texas by................ 43,44

observations of, on Jura-Trias of Texas ................................ 69

Cretaceous of Texas....................................................... 71-88

Cross timbers, extent of Texas......'....................................... 51

Cummins, W. F., vertebrate collections of.................................. 43

on age of Carboniferous limestone ..................................... 62

on the Permian in Texas .............................................. 66,67

on age of gypsum strata in Texas ................»..................... 69,70

91 

(469)
INDEX.

D.

Dana J. D., on the Permian of Texas...................................... 64

Davis, E. J., appointment of State geologist by............................. 30,

Denison, Tex., exposure of Cretaceous rocks near........................... 75,76

DeRyee, W., on Permian of Texas......................................... 65,66

Devonian, absence of, in Texas ............................................ 57

E.

Emory, W. II., field work of, in Texas .................................... 24

Empresario.grants, character of ........................................... 12

F.

First Geological Survey (Shumard)......................................... 29-38

Forshey, C. G., contributions of, to the geologic knowledge of Texas........ 42

Freeman, Lieutenant, exploration of....................................... 19

G.

Gannett, H., estimate of water area in Texas by............................ 50

General conclusions....................................................... 88,89

Geologic deductions ........................ .............................. 87,88

Glenn, J. W., work of, on Second Geological Survey ................... ... 38-40

Gulf Tertiary............................................................ 86

Gypsum strata of Texas..................................................... 69,70

H.

Hall, Charles E., appointment of, as assistant geologist..................... 39

Hall, James, geologic work of, in Texas ................................... .24

on age of Carboniferous limestone in Texas............................. 60,61

Havard, V., contribution to the topography of Texas by .................... 45

Heilprin, A., contributions to geology of Texas by ......................... 47

on Tertiary of Texas.................................................. 84,85

Hitchcock, Edward, contribution to mineralogy of Texas by ................ 24

on lignite of Texas .................................................... 83

Holley, Mary A., work on Texas by..............'.......................... 12

Humboldt, Alexander von, geologic and geographic work of, in Texas...... 9,10

J.

Jenney, W. P., article on Texas geology by ................................ 44

section at El Paso by.................................................. 57

Jurassic rocks of Texas .........°.......................................70,71,75

Jura-Trias, or gypsum strata, of Texas...................................... 69,70

K. .

Katteyer, G. H., analyses by .............................................. 40

Kendall, G. W., contributions of, to the geologic knowledge of Texas ....... 42

Kennedy, William, contributions by, to the knowledge of the topography,

geology, and natural history of Texas............................9,10,13,14

Kimball, J. P., contributions to geology of Texas by........................ 45

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INDEX. 93

L.

Page.

Lararnie, occurrence of, in Texas ........................................... 84

Lee, C. K. , aid acknowledged ............................................ 28, note

Llano Estacado, extent of ................................................. 51

Long, S. H. , report of, on exploration of Texas ............ ................ 19, 20

Loughridge, R. H., contributions of, to topography and geology of Texas. ... 44

description of topography of Texas by. ................................ 50-52

on Cretaceous of Texas ............................................... 82, 83

on Tertiary of Texas. ........... ..................................... 85, 80

on occurrence of Quaternary drift .................................... 87

Lower Cretaceous of Texas ............................................... 79, 80

M.

McClellan, Geo. B., barometric and astronomic observations by ............. 28

Mainz- Verein, work of, in encouragement of Texas immigration ........... 14

Marcou, Jules, geologic Avork of, in Texas ................................. 25, 26

contributions by, to the geology of Texas. ............................. 58

observations of, on Jura-Trias of Texas ............................... 69

on Jurassic of Texas. ................................................. 70

on Cretaceous of Texas ............................................... 74-76

rearrangement of Shumard's section by ................................ 80, 81

Marcy, R. B., map of Texas by. ........................................... 22

geologic work in Texas under direction of ............................. 23, 24

observations of, on Jura-Trias of Texas ....................... ........ 69

Meek, F. B., contributions to paleontology of Texas by. .................... 46

Mesozoic strata, on the existence of, in Texas .............................. 68

Michler, N. , jr. , military reconnaissance of ................................ 21

contribution to the geography and topography of Texas by ............. 22

Moore, F. M., appointment of, as State geologist. ........................... 34, 35

Morton, S. G., contributions to paleontology of Texas by ................... 46

N.

Neocoiniaii of Marcou. ................................................... 70

Ne wherry , J. S. , on Permian in United States 1 . ............................ 62

Nolan, Philip, topographic map of Texas by ............................... 11

Norton, A. D., aid acknowledged. ........................................ .28, note

Owen, D. D. , geologic work of, in Texas .................................. 82

P.

Pacific Railroad surveys. .................................................. 25-27

Paleozoic of Texas ..................................................... .17, 55-57

Parry, C. C., geologic work of, in Texas .................................... 25

on occurrence of Carboniferous in Texas ... ........................... 60

"Permian," indefinite use of*. .......................................... .62, 63, 65

Permian of Cope and of Shumard ......................................... 65-68

Permian of the Wichita region of Texas .................................. 66

Permian or Permo-Carbonif erous of Texas .... ............................ 62-68

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94 INDEX.

Page. 

Pike, Z. M., exploration of Upper Arkansas region by ...................... 19

Pope, John, thirty-second parallel survey by .............................. 26,27

artesian Avell experiment of ........................................... 27

Q.

Quaternary and other Post-Tertiary strata of Texas ........'................ 86,87

R.

Red River of Louisiana, exploration of.................................... 23,24

Riddell, W. P., work of, on First Geological Survey ........................ 31

Roberts, O. M., contributions of, to physical geography of Texas............ 42

Roemer, Ferdinand, contributions by, to the geology and paleontology of

Texas .............................................................. 15-18

estimate by J. W. Glenn of the value of the reports of ................. 39

on Cretaceous of Texas ............................................... 71-73

Kreidebildungen of, quoted ........................................... 72

on boundaries of Cretaceous formation in Texas........................ 83

on Quaternary and later formations in Texas.........................:.. 86,87

Roessler, A. R., appointed topographer of First Geological Survey .......... 30

work of, on State surveys ............................................. 37,39

maps of Texas by..................................................... 45,50

Runnels. H. R., appointment of State geologist by ......................... 30

S.

Scheele, Adolph, description of plants of Texas by ........................ 16

Scherpf, G. A., map of Texas by........................................... 14

Schott, Arthur, geologic work of, in Texas ................................ 24

on Cretaceous of Texas................................................ 76,83

on boundaries of Tertiary and Cretaceous in Texas ..................... 85, 86

Second Geological Survey (Glenn-Buckley) ................................ 38-42

Shumard, B. F., descriptions of Carboniferous and Cretaceous fossils by .... 24

contributions to geology of Texas by .................................. 21

First Geological Survey of Texas conducted by......................... 29-38

report on Texas fossils by ............................................. 60

report on Permian fossils of Texas by................................;. 63

section of Cretaceous of Texas by ..................................... 76-80

criticisms on Cretaceous section of..................................... 80,81

on Cretaceous of Texas................................................ 81,82

ShuTnard, G. G., geologic observations of, in Texas ......................... 28,24

contributions to geology of Texas by .................................. 27

field work of, on First Geological Survey ~.............................. 30,31

observations of, on Lower Silurian of Texas ........................... 56,57

on occurrence of coal in Texas ........................................ 58

on stratigraphic features of trans-Pecos area ........................... 61

report on stratigraphy of trans-Pecos region by ......................... 63,64

observations of, on Jura-Trias of Texas ..:............................. 69

observations of, on Cretaceous of Texas ................................ 73,74

Simpson, Friench, aid acknowledged .................................... 28, note

statement of expenditures of Second Geological Survey by.............. 41

Smith, W. F., military reconnaissance of .................................. 21

exploration in Texas by ............................................... 22

Solms-Braunfels, Prince Carl, German hand book for Texas immigrants by.. 13,14

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INDEX. 95

T.

Page. 

Taylor, N. A., aid acknowledged ........................................ .28, note

contributions of, to the geologic knowledge of Texas ................... 42

on Jurassic of Texas .................................................. 70,71

Tertiary of Texas .......................................................17,84-86

Texas, endeavors of, to establish a geologic survey......................... 27,28

succession of scientific explorations in ................................. 48

topography of ........................................................ 49-53

list of geologic formations in ..................................'........ 54

Texas land office, map of Texas issued by.................................. 12

methods of and maps published by .................................... 29

Thirty-fifth parallel survey ................................................ 25,26

Thirty-second parallel survey.............................................. 20,27

Tracey, J. G., aid acknowledged .........................................28, note

Trans-Pecos Carboniferous area .. ........................................ 59-62

Trans-Pecos region of Shumard ........................................... 63-65

u.

United States, establishment of forts in Texas by .......................... 20

United States and Mexican boundary survey............................... 24,25

United States Geological Survey, work of, in Texas......................... 47,48

United States military reconnaissances and explorations ................... 18-27

Upper Cretaceous of Texas ................................................ 77-79

W.

Walcott, C. D., publications on Paleozoic rocks of Texas by ...........45,46,55,56

Washita limestone ........................................................ 79

Whiting, W. H. C., military reconnaissance of............................. 21,22

Whipple, A. W., survey of the thh'ty-fifth parallel by ...................... 25,26

White, C. A., contributions of, to paleontology of Texas .................. .87,46,47

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