554 PROCEEDINGS OF m;\v ¥/ORK MEETING. 



The next paper ia represented by the following abstract: 



CRETACEOUS PLANTS FROM MARTHA'S VINEYARD. 

 I;V DAVID WHITE.* 



[Abstract."] 



An historical review of the opinions of geologists, during the first half of this cen- 

 tury, concerning the age of the strata extensively exposed at Gaj Head, at the western 

 end of the island of Martha's Vineyard, shows a general agreement in correlating 

 those strata with the Alum bay clays in the [sle of Wight, chiefly on account of their 

 stratigraphical resemhlance. Specimens of a Cretaceous fauna have been found, but 



the rolled appearance of these and the present F mure recent fossils in the Bame series 



have led to the conclusion tliat the Gay Head terrane is of lower or middle Tertiary 

 age. Within the last year, however, this series has been the subject of an elaborate 

 stratigraphical description by Professor N. S. Shaler, who, in his report on the geol- 

 ogy of Martha'.- Vineyard, names it the "Vineyard series," and concludes, without 

 adducing the paleontologic evidence, that it is late Miocene or l'li ne. 



A careful search made last summer, in company with Professor Lester F. Ward, of 

 the IT. S. Geological Survey, resulted in the discovery and collection of plants in the 

 carbonaceous clays in the Vineyard scries at several points about Gay Head, at 

 Peaked hill, and at Nashaquitsa, and from concretions found in the first and last 

 named localities. Fossil wood was found wherever the series was met with. The 

 collection, which bears an archaic aspect, embraces cryptogams, gymnosperms, and 

 angiosperms. Most of the species Beem unlike any before described. 



Of the species as yet identified, Sphenopteris grevillioides, Mr., has been found also 

 in the Kome (lower Cretaceous) beds of Greenland; Sequoia ambigua, llr., occurs in 

 the Kome beds and the lower Atane (middle Cretaceous) of Greenland; Andromeda 

 parlatorii, llr., formerly described from the Dakota group of Kansas and Nebraska, 

 has also been identified in the lower Atane of Greenland, and from strata probably 

 of Cretaceous age in the Bozeman coal mine- of .Montana; Myrsine borealis, llr., 

 occurs in the " Liriodendron bed " (lower Atane) in Greenland; Liriodendron simplex, 



Newb'y (/>. Meekii, Hr., in part), »f the few Bpecies as yet published from the 



Amhoy clays, is one of the most abundant Bpecies in the flora at Gay Head, where it 

 i~ found associated with forms identical with some found by Beer in the famous 

 • • /. Iron bed" of the lower Atane, and in the Patoot (upper Cretaceous) of 



Greenland; a Sapindus, probably referable to S. Morrisoni } Lx., has been found in 

 the Dakota group of Nebraska and the Patoot beds of Greenland ; Eucalyptus gei- 

 nitzi. llr., next in abundance, has been found in the " Liriodendron bed " of Green- 

 land, is abundant in and characteristic of the middle Cretaceous of Bohemia, and 



. appears at the same stage (Cenomanian) in Moravia. The remains of the /■■' 



lyptus nuts arc' marked by furrow- tilled with a fossil resin " indistinguishable by 

 ordinary te-t- from amb The fossil content- of these oil or gum vessels suggest 



that a part at least of the so-called amber found about Gay Head and in the Creta- 

 Ji ey, where also eucalypts occur, may be the fossilized exudation of 

 the contemporaneous " gum-trei 

 All the previously described species thus far identified at Gay Head have been found 



lusively in the Creta i, and all but Sphenopteria grevillioides were present in 



the middl> i Llthougl r flora seems to be more directly related to that 



Printed in full in the am. Jour. 3cL t-r February, 



