Collected by Mr. CJeorg-c Gibbs. 509 



Nanaiino, are of cretaceous age ; indeed, so far as at 

 present known to us, all the fossils collected at Vancou- 

 ver's Island are of that formation. 



This evidence is not sufficient, however, to exclude all 

 tertiary rocks from the island, as but a small part of it 

 has been studied, and its geological structure is evidently 

 somewhat complicated. From the great development of 

 Miocene strata on the main land near by, we may even 

 anticipate that similar rocks vnll be found in Vancouver, 

 yet, so far as I am informed, they have not up to the 

 present time been identified there. 



In regard to the age of the plant-bearing strata of Bel- 

 lingham Bay, there can be, I think, no reasonable doubt 

 that, as suggested by Messrs. Lesquereux and Heer, and 

 previously by the writer, (P. R. R. Rept. Vol. VI. Geol. 

 p. 64,) they are Miocene. 



We cannot, perhaps, assert positively that any of the 

 species of fossil plants found at Bellingham Bay are iden- 

 tical with any from the Miocene strata of Europe, as a 

 larger amount of material than we now have would be 

 required for the settlement of that question, but the gene- 

 ric correspondence of the plants of Bellingham Bay and 

 Oeningen, for example, is very striking, and several species 

 from Bellingham Bay are so very like foreign ones, that I 

 have been unwilling to regard them as distinct. For in- 

 stance, besides the species mentioned by Mr. Lesqv^ereux, 

 Taxodium occidentale is closely allied to T. dubium of 

 Europe, the only marked difl'erence being, that in the 

 American plant the leaflets are constantly rounded at 

 both ends ; Sabal Cainpbelli, as represented in the collec- 

 tion of the Boundary Commission, is only to be distin- 

 guished from S. major by its flat unkeelcd petiole ; Smilax 

 cyclophylla is the representative of S. orbicularis ; Qiicr- 

 cus Bauksifcfolia is allied to Q. Drymfja, while Glyplostro- 

 bus Europccifs, Carpiniis g-randis, and Rliamnus Gaudini 



