In a letter to the editor, Barash [J. Acoust. Soc. Am.43, 378–380 (1968)] presented experimental evidence of the fact that for a divergent wave in a refractive medium caustics and turning points are clearly separated and phase shifts occur at the caustics only. In a rebuttal, Tolstoy [J. Acoust. Soc. Am.43, 380–381 (1968)] implied that while Barash's evidence was interesting, the accompanying conclusions lacked generality. In another letter, Silbiger [J. Acoust. Soc. Am.44, 653–654 (1968)] illustrated that there was theoretical evidence for Barash's conclusions by deriving an asymptotic short‐wave length solution to the wave equation appropriate to a point source in a vertically stratified medium by means of the WKBJ method. In this paper it is demonstrated that for a purely refracted ray emanating from a point source in a vertically stratified medium which possesses a single sound‐speed minimum, (1) the ray first encounters a caustic after its first turning point and before its second, (2) the ray encounters only one caustic between turning points, and (3) for that ray, turning points and points of encounter with caustics approach one another with increasing range from the source. These conclusions are in agreement with those of Silbiger, but are arrived at through rigorous geometrical acoustic means. [Work supported by AFGL.]