ARBUCKLE MOUNTAINS, OKLAHOMA



470



THE ARBUCKLE MOUNTAINS, OKLAHOMA



471



upper part that a st roki'ot' the liaiiinu'r
reveals fossils.

|| The Arbiickle liinostono is the thick-
est and most extensive formation ex-
posed in the uplift . The lower 450 feet
are also of upper C 'ambrian a^e and con-
tain a number of unidentified species.
The overljdng extensive dolomite and
magnesian limestone beds of Ordovician
age, some 4000 feet thick, are not very
fossiliferous, but in the uppermost 1000
feet of the Arbucklc, where the beds are
more shaly and siliceous, fossils are not
uncommon.

The Simpson formation of middle
and lower Ordovician age contains
abundant fossils in the wooded valleys
on the south side of the Arbuckle anti-
cline, north and west of Springer.
The lower Simpson fauna is similar to
the Chazy of New York and Canada,
while the upper one is closel}^ related
to the upper Stones river group of
Tennessee and Kentucky.

The gray Viola limestone of middle
and upper Ordovician age appears
massive on fresh exposures, and thin-
bedded where weathered. It outcrops
near the margin of the large truncated
anticlines as liigh ridges and rounded
knobs. In the small Vine dome and
Dougherty antichne it occupies a
central axial position. LithologicaU}^
and faunally it is di\dsible into three
members. The lowest member is
characterized by some twenty-five
species w^hich represent the latest
Black River and earliest Trenton stages
of New York and Minnesota. The
species of the middle member are
indicative of the upper Trenton stage
of the Ordo\'ician of New York. The
abimdantly fossiliferous beds of the
upper member are characteristic of the
widel}^ spread Richmond stage of the
upper Ordo\'ician period.

The green Sylvan shale, yeUo\\dsh
where weathered, contains few fossils.



The Wasal ledges exposed at the south
end of Vine dome are fossiliferous;
elsewhere, especially in the northeast
corner of the uphft near Lawrence,
tabular crystals of barite are common.
The age of this formation is still prob-
lematical, but may be classed provision-
ally as lowest Silurian

The Hunton group of beds, which has
been the subject of a special study by
the writer, may be subdivided litho-
logieally and faunally, from the bottom
upward, as follows: (1) Chimneyhill
limestone, with oolitic, glanconitic,
and crinoidal members; (2) Henry-
house shale; (3) Haragan shale; (4)
Bois d'Arc limestone; and (5) Frisco
Umestone. The beds, which are well
exposed, varj^ in thickness from place
to place, and no one section contains
all of them. The first and second
subdivisions are Silurian in age, the
third, fourth and fifth are Devonian.
Some 300 species have been collected
from these rocks.

The fauna of the Chimneyhill Lime-
stone is the equivalent of the Ohio
Clinton and Brassfield beds (low^er
Silurian) of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennes-
see, Indiana, lUinois, and Arkansas.
The man}^ fine specimens w'hich occur
in the oolitic, glanconitic, and cri-
noidal members are not easj' to obtain
for they have to be hammered from the
hard and persistent ledges.

Although the Henrjdiouse shale has a
great development on Hemyhouse
Creek, the finest exposures, longest
section, and most fossiliferous zones are
to be found in the northeast corner of
the uphft on Chimnej'hill Creek and
to the north wai'd. The lower 120 feet
have relativeh- few species, w'hile the
upper portion contains manj^ forms.
The fauna of this formation is most
closely related to the Bob and Loble-
villebeds (middle Silurian) of Tennessee.
The Haragan shale and marh- lime-



472



NATURAL HISTORY




Fig. 8. — Henryhouse Creek section, soutii side of .\rbuckle Mountains. General view
looking east along the strike of the Himton beds (treeless ridge in center). The Sj-lvan
shale appears in the characteristic timbered annular valley on the left margin; the Woodford
chert underhes the timbered belt on the right side, while the barren Sycamore hmestone
covers the back slope of the Woodford chert




Fig. 9. — One of the numerous shale exposures abounding with fossils. "'White ^lound."
an outher of the Haragan shale, three miles southeast of Dougherty, Oklahoma. The sur-
face of this mound is Uterallj- covered with invertberate fossils, manj- species being the same
as those found in the Xew Scotland beds Qower Devonianj of Xew York .State. A student
party from the University of Oklahoma may be seen busih' engaged collecting fossils



stone beds are best exposed on the
east side of the Arbuckle uplift from
Bromide to Franks and at "White
Mound" and Haragan Creek three
miles southeast of Dougherty. Many
bushels of fossils have been gathered
from the surface of ""\Miite Mound."
The formation is replete with fossils of
the New Scotland stage (lower Devon-
ian) of Xew York.

The Bois d' Arc limestone, being hard,
crystaUine, and chertj^, outcrops as



conspicuous hogback ridges through-
out its extensive exposm'es. Its rather
abundant fauna is indicative of the
Becraft stage (lower Devonian) of
New York.

The term Frisco is herewith applied
to the massive bedded coquina-like
limestone some twenty feet thick which
rests upon the Bois d'Arc formation
two to three miles northwest of Frisco.
The best exposm-es appear in the bed
and bank of Bois d'Arc creek, also in



THE ARBUCKLE MOUNTAINS, OKLAHOMA



473



the vicinity of Coal Creek seven miles
south of Frisco. Tlie fauna is the
equivalent of the Oriskany stajj;e, the
highest nienibei- of tlie Iowcm' I )(>\'()inaTi
of New York.

The Woodford chert, in spite of its
extensive exposures, contains but few
fossils. A one-foot basal transition
bed, noted at various places, contains
fossils derived from the underlying-
formations. Fish scales in concre-
tions and large tree trunks of Dadoxylon
newherryensis were found in the basal
layers in the northeast corner of the
Arbuckles. The age of this formation is
problematical; it may be in part
Devonian and in part Mississippian.

The bluish to yellowish Sycamore
limestone is confined to the southern
and west-central part of the Arbuckle
Mountains. The few fossils obtained
suggest Mississippian age, but its
equivalent in other states has not been
determined.

The black Caney shale, being a soft
rock, is well exposed in the bordering
plain along the southern and eastern
margins of the Arbuckle Mountain
plateau. Limestone lentils in the lower
part and sandy beds in the upper part
contain fossils. The age of this forma-
tion is still problematical ; the lower part
is generally regarded as Mississippian,
the upper portion as Pennsylvanian.

In the vicinity of Franks, Sulphur,
Davis, and westward along the north-
ern edge of the Arbuckle Mountains,
the Franks conglomerate rests un-
conformably on the Caney shale and
older formations. This deposit which
increases in thickness to the westward
represents an erosional and depositional
stage following the upUft of the
Arbuckle Mountains in Pennsylvanian
time. To the south of the Arbuckle
anticline the Franks conglomerate does
not appear, but instead, a thick series



of shales and sandstones, known as the
(denn format ion, rests against the
Caney shale. The ( llcnn hcd.s are
folded and upturned, and, although a
tathei' extensive Pennsvlvanian fauna




Fig. 10. — The highest formation of the
Hunton Group. Massive bedded Frisco
limestones of Oriskany age (lower Devonian)
exposed in the banks of Bois d'Arc Creek
three miles northwest of Frisco, Oklahoma

has been collected from them, the exact
stage of the development of the high
Arbuckle Mountains by folding and
faulting has not been fully determined.
Extensive deposits of Permian con-
glomerate, forming plains, appear
across the western margin of the
Arbuckle uplift.

The preceding description of the
Arbuckle INIountains and the abbre-
viated hst of the fossils found therein
give but an inlding of the adventures
and surprises in store for the fossil
hunter who visits the region. The vari-



474



NATURAL HISTORY



ous formations are clearly exposed and
the fossils are well preserved. Each
little shell has a storj^ to tell of the
ages of long ago. From strata to strata
the species either recur or show slight
variations; in the succeeding beds they
are apt to be somewhat different, with
new forms appearing. The student



becomes impressed with this record of
the life of former ages, and notes that
the theory of evolution as represented
in these rocks and fossils is a reality
and not a fancy. To the fossil collector
the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma
are not only a happy hunting ground,
but a great treasure-trove.




IN THE HEART OF THE ARBUCKLE MOUXTAIXS

Fig 11. — Beautiful Turner Falls on Honey Creek, six miles southwest of Davis, Oklahoma. The blue-green
colors in the deep pool below the falls are attributed to lime-secreting alga;. The rock comprising the falls is
composed of travertine. These deposits contain impressions of living plants perhaps 4000 years old. Numerous
falls and travertine deposits also appear on Falls Creek three miles to the southeast of this point



The Romance of Collecting Fossil Plants



By EDWARD W. BERRY

Professor of Pahcontology, Johns Hopkins University



THE study of pUmt fossils pos-
sesses a many-sided fascination,
not the least of which is the
light which it sheds on the ancient
history of the earth. Its story is not
merely the history of the endless suc-
cession of plants which have inhabited
the earth since life began, it aims to
understand and interpret these in
terms of evolution, geography-, topog-
raphy, rainfall, temperature, and dis-
tribution. Although I said the study
of plant fossils, to my mind the student
must also be the collector fully to in-
terpret his material, for there is little
that is romantic in sitting in a labora-
tory and sorting fossils that someone
else has collected. One can never be
sure whether better or more complete
specimens could have been secured,
or of the exact relations between speci-
mens and sediments. Palseobotanj^
divorced from the field of geology be-
comes sterile.

The true student must be a traveler
— he must not onlj" be a collector, but
he must see all sorts of recent ecological
groupings. The reason that so much
nonsense has been written about geo-
logical climates is because the majority
of paleontologists live in the North
Temperate Zone. I know from experi-
ence that it is impossible to sense en-
vironment from herbarium specimens
or books. The motto, then, of the suc-
cessful student of fossil plants is the
eighth verse of the twelfth chapter of
Job: ''Speak to the earth and it shall
teach thee."

Xo more interesting chapter can be
found than that recounting the mj-sti-



cal interpretations of the nature v)f fos-
sils which are to be found in the writ-
ings of the ancients. It was Martin
Luth(n' who suggested that fossils were
the physical evidence cf Noah's flood,
and we read in the Transactions of the
Royal Society of London for 1757, that
the flood occurred in the fall of the
year — and this because the pyritized
seeds in the London clays were fully
matured.

In considering what I might tell the
readers of Natural History about
the romance of collecting fossil plants,
I have thought of many romantic
things that are now part of the history
of palaeobotany, such as the wonder
aroused in scientific circles in the latter
part of the last century when a pro-
lific flora was brought back to Europe
from Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks
outcropping within a few degrees of the
North Pole; or of the fossil plants
found with Captain Scott's body in
Antarctica; or of the marveloiLs jNIio-
cene flora found in the sediments of the
tiny lake of Oeningen in Eaden, de-
scril^ed by Heer; or of the plants in
the mouth and stomach of the frozen
mammoth in Siberia; or the unique
Triassic genus found in a stone in
Strasboui'g Cathedral; or of the won-
derful petrified cycad trunk found on
an Etruscan toml) in Italy; or the
plants found on the lake-dwelling sites
in Switzerland antl Austria which
record the beginnings of human agri-
culture; or the remarkable flora
found with the ape man {Pithecan-
thropus) in Java; or the casts of plants
found in the Palseocene travertines of

476



476



NATURAL HISTORY



Sezanne on the western front in
France, which can be injected with
wax and the matrix then dissolved,
giving us wax flowers and fruits show-
ing the details of long vanished plants;
or those preserved in amber — perhaps
the most perfect of aU; but I will pass
these by and confine myseK to a few
personal experiences. One need not fall
back upon history or the work of
others, for there is ample romance in
collecting plant fossils so that every
individual may expect to experience
his full share.

As a child I collected Palgeozoic
animal fossils from railroad ballast
and along the stone fences of Scho-
harie County, New York, and in later
years I collected vertebrate and
invertebrate fossils from very many
geological horizons, but I still have a
vivid recollection of the thrill — now a
generation old — when I found my first
leaf impression in a clay bowlder of
Upper Cretaceous age, at Cliffwood,
New Jersey. That a thing so perish-
able should have been preserved for all
those ages seemed marvelous. That
a bone or a shell, a coral or a trilobite
should thus survive the ravages of
time seemed more understandable,
but that a leaf or a flower — and I have
since found many of the latter — should
survive for millions of j-ears to tell us
something of the vegetation of the
dawn of the Age of Flowering Plants,
when mammals were just starting
their careers and man was a far dis-
tant promise, has never ceased to
impress me.

I have since collected animal and
plant fossils in many climes and al-
ways that phrase from Ezekial, "Can
these bones Hve," has run through
my mind, and I know of no human
delight more satisfying than that of
trying to visuaUze the landscape of



some remote stage of earth history,
peopling it with its appropriate animals
and plants.

It might seem that the record is
scanty. Observing the seeming uni-
versal decay of all organisms, we
should expect little to be preserved,
but with our three score and ten years
of existence, we forget the unending
ages that the earth has been writing
its autobiography in the rocks — which
is Geology. I have calculated that a
single clay lens in the Eocene of the
Mississippi embayment took several
thousand years to accumulate, so that
a leaf a day saved would furnish very
respectable collecting for the palgeo-
botanist.

Part of the romance of all fossil
collecting is that rarely does the geolo-
gist know just what he is going to un-
cover. I once took thirty-nine differ-
ent species of Upper Cretaceous plants
from a tiny clay lens high above the
base of a bluff of sand on Cape Fear
River, North Carolina, discovered by
finding fragments in the talus at the
base and tracing them to their source.
At another time, when I was wading
along a stream in the Coastal Plain of
Georgia, looking for exposures in the
low, vegetation-overhung banks, I dis-
covered a small clay lens, not more
than fifteen inches thick and a few
feet long, in the marine sands of the
Upper Cretaceous. This not only
furnished nineteen different species,
of which nearly half were new, but also
two enormous and nearly perfect lo-
bate leaves more than a foot in di-
ameter and belonging to a new and
extinct genus.

Almost always and everj^where when
you have dug and split rock till your
back aches and you are ready to quit,
something new or startling will be un-
covered that banishes weariness and



THE ROMANCE OF COLLECTING FOSSIL PLANTS



477




Fig. 1. — Recent nipa palms on a tidal flat in the Philippine Islands,
grew in the estuaries of the late lower Eocene Mississippi embayment



Similar palms



makes you work on till sundown.

For whenever the way seems long
Or your heart begins to fail,
Nature sings a more wonderful song,
Or tells a more marvelous tale.i

It may be ferruginized cones of a
sequoia in the Dakota bad lands or
the Potomac clays; or magnificent
fossil ginkgo leaves in the Bridger
forest reserve, where now only spruce
and aspen are to be seen; or water
chestnuts (Trapa) in the Pliocene clays
of i\labama; or the twigs of the water
cypress (Glyptostrohus) , now repre-
sented' by a single species in two
regions in China, found fossil at al-
most every Fort Union plant locaUty
of the West, and in the Tertiary" of the
Gulf Coastal Plain.

Who would expect to find nutmegs
and date palm seeds in Texas, and yet
they were there in Eocene times, and
have been collected and described.

iWith apologies to Longfellow.



One of the most interesting of modern
palms, in that it grows on tidal flats, —
and few higher plants have learned
to tolerate salt water, — is the nipa
palm. The single existing species is
found from the Sunderbunds of the
Ganges through the Malayan region
to the Philippines, where it competes
with the mangroves for a place in the
sun and in the marine mud (Fig. 1).
Its characteristic fruits have long been
known from the earher Tertiary of the
Old World. Then, as now, the species
was distributed by ocean currents. I
found them while working in the lower
Eocene of Mississippi, and have since
found them in western Tennessee, so
that once in the long ago the}' circum-
navigated the globe, Uke Magellan.
Historians, especially if they are given
to sentiment, Uke to speak of the sun
that shone in Galilee or at RunnjTnede
or in the valley of the Nile, but the
first djTiastj^ in the valley of the Nile,



478



NATURAL HISTORY






Fig. 2. — Restorations of lower Eocene plants from the Mississippi embaj-ment.
(1) Laguncidaria, a mangrove plant. (2) Diospyros, a persimmon. (3) Pisonia, a beach
plant. (4) Nyssa, a sour gum



or Nineveh and Tyre, are but as yes-
terday compared with collectors' luck
in palaeontology. And one can visual-
ize the Archseopteryx volplaning across
the Jurassic Solenhofen lagoons, or the
vegetation where the four-toed horse
came down to drink, or the vernal and
autumnal coloration of the Wilcox
shores and bayous with their appro-
priate plants,, with the crocodiles in
the sluggish waters and the hum of
insects over their surface, and live
through millions and millons of years
in a single lifetime.



A REMARKABLE PLANT LOCALITY IX
W^ESTERN TENNESSEE

In Henry County in western Ten-
nessee, a series of clay lenses, with
their long axes parallel with the lower
Eocene coast, stretch across the
county. These are of all sizes and
surrounded by sands, and commercial
exploitation has resulted in many
workings, so that the geological rela-
tions are rather plain. At the little
town of Puryear I discovered fossil
plants in the clay pit shown in
Fig. 5 on page 481, and not



THE ROMANCE OF COLLECTING FOSSIL PLANTS



479







Fig. 3. — Restorations of lower Eocene plants from the Mississippi embayment. —
(1) Parkinsotiia, an Eocene horse bean. (2) //?gra, a characteristic leguminous tree. (3) Engel-
hardtia, a winged walnut. (4) Dondonaea, a beach plant



more than an acre or two in area.
This was nearly twenty years ago,
and a few hours' collecting at that
time resulted in over 200 pounds of
beautiful plant fossils. I have re-
visited this locality a number of times,
and it has turned out to be the most



prolific localitj' for lower Eocene plants
in all of North America. The remark-
able number of over 200 species have
been discovered at Purj^ear, includ-
ing leaves, flowers, and fruits — all won-
derfully preserved, — and these are
sufficient to give a very good idea of



480



NATURAL HISTORY




Fig. 4. — A view from Florida which reproduces the appearance of Puryear in lower
Eocene time. Photograph by Walter B. Jones



the appearance of the region in the
early Tertiary.

The coast was low and the streams
sluggish, emptying into lagoons be-
hind wide barrier beaches, which were
mostly forested. The accompanying
photograph, taken in Florida by Wal-
ter B. Jones, will serve to give some
idea of Puryear in the lower Eocene.
(Fig. 4.)

I could not begin to enumerate even
the more interesting of these finds, or
the vista they give of the long ago in
the earlier part of the Age of Flower-
ing Plants. The beaches were cov-
ered with bowers of wild figs, fan
palms, coral beans (Sophora), cocoa
plums (Chrysobalanus), sea grapes
(Coccolobis), beach almonds {Termina-
lia), soapberries (Sapindus), horse
beans (Parkinsonia) , paradise trees
(Simaruba), iron wood (Bumelia),
sword beans (Canavalia), and many
other forms allied to those still living
in Florida, Central America, and
northern South America. On the
muddy bottoms were black mangroves
(Avicennia) and other plants of the



mangrove type (Laguncularia, Cono-
carpus, Combretum). The bayou mar-
gins were densely forested wdth the
bald cypress (Taxodium.) , custard ap-
ples (Anona). rosewood (Dalbergia),
cinnamon or camphor trees {Cinna-
monium) and many other members
of the laurel family, including an
Eocene representative of the avocado
or alligator pear — in fact, only in
northern South America do we find
such a variety of Lauracese at the
present time. Other interesting things
were the rain tree {Pithecolobuim) ,
dilly (Mimusops), mastic (Sideroxy-
lon), tropical cedar (Cedrela), cycads
like the existing Florida zamias, a
citrus tree (Citrophyllum), representa-
tives of the family to which the Asiatic
tea plant belongs (Ternstroemites),
persimmons (Diospyros) of several
kinds, represented by both foliage
and the characteristic concrescent
cruciform calices that subtend the
soft fruits.

Among the more exotic finds are
the leaves and winged fruits of a tree
belonging to the walnut family (Engel-



THE ROMANCE OF COLLECTING FOSSIL PLANTS 481



hardtia aiul Orconnuincd) with a single
existing species in Ihc uplands of Cen-
tral Anioriea and several others across
the Pacific in soullu^istern Asia. This
is quite unlike our familiar walnuts
and hickories in that the nut, instead
of becoming large and bony and de-
pendent on rodents for dispersal, re-



A GLIMPSIO AT A LOWER MIOCENE
FLORA AT ALUM BLUFF

When the Chattahoochee Rivei-,
which forms a part of the boundary
between Georgia and Alabama, reaches
Florida and joins the Flint River, it
becomes the Apalachicola. About
halfway across Floiida to the Gulf,






Fig. 5. — The clay pit at Puryear, Tennessee, is the most prolific lower Eocene plant
locality in America



mains small, and the bracts expand into
large wings. We infer that this second
method tm-ned out to be less efficient
in competition, for the walnuts and
hickories are found over a much greater
area at the present time. Where I had
both leaves and flowers or leaves and
fruits, I have prepared life-size restora-
tions of many of these Eocene plants
from Puryear, and a few of these very
greatly reduced, are shown in Figs. 2
and 3. •



the east bank of the Apalachicola con-
sists of a series of high bluffs which are
in striking contrast to the low country
west of the river. One of the longest
of these is Alum Bluff — a classic local-
ity of the so-called old Miocene and
one that has been visited bj- a number
of geologists.

I made m}^ pilgrimage in the summer
of 1910 and found the difficulties of
the trip well repaid. In the wooded
damp ravines along the blufT are to be



482



NATURAL HISTORY



found two of the rarest and most re-
stricted gymnosperms — survivors from
a long line of Mesozoic ancestors.
These are Taxus floridana and Tumion
taxifolium. They are much alike in
appearance, but the latter has a very
distinctive odor which has given rise
to the popular name of stinking cedar,



though some are based on somewhat
uncertain material, several are con-
clusive, and these show a Holarctic
distribution in the Cretaceous. One
Upper Cretaceous form found from
North Carolina to Georgia is practi-
cally identical with the living Alum
Bluff form and is probably its direct




Fig. 6. — A famous plant locality — ^Alum Bluff, on the Apalachicola River in Florida



although it does not resemble a cedar,
and the odor is not unpleasant, being
much like that of the crushed foliage
of a tomato plant. Taxus is found on
all the continents except South Ameri-
ca and Africa, but is widely scattered.
The nearest species of Tumion is a
somewhat restricted form in Califor-