274 MESUZUIC FLOKA.S OF UMTED STATES. 



it was tlioro wlipii he moved to the jihice several years ago, the previous occiij)ant 

 of the lioiise liaviiig been his uncle. He is confident that it was picked uj) in tlic 

 field near hy, and he showed nie another cycad I'ragnK'nt . l)adly weathered, that 

 had evidently t'ornicd part of a large specimen, stating that he hinisclf had found 

 this specimen in his jiiowed field. Tiiere were also fragments of rock with lower 

 C'hico invertebrates that had been ]iick<'d uj) in the same field, and he directed me 

 to a locality near by. on l)eds whose strike W((uld cai'i'v them up the valley through 

 this field, where Chico fo.ssils were found in place. 



The valley of Grapevine Creek is here not more than one-fourth to one-half 

 mile wide and nearly parallel with the north-south strike of the strata exposed in 

 high ridges on either side. A short distance up the creek (south), howcvir, it.s 

 course changes so that its source is some miles to the westward, and it probably 

 crosses both Knoxville and IIoi-s;^town beds, though no direct paleontologic ])roof of 

 this was found. Assuming that the cycad was brought to Pryor's field a greater or 

 less distance by Grapevine Creek, the possible sources of the specimen seem to be 

 limited to the Knoxville, the Horsetown, and the lower Chico, with the probatiilities 

 in favor of one of the two last named. 



From the above there seems to l^e some doubt whether the specimen 

 really came from the Shasta formation or from the overlying Chico, Ijut 

 the probabilities are so largely in favor of the Horsetown age of the beds 

 containing it that it is tolerably safe to treat it under this head. 



The trunk certainly belongs to the genus Cycadeoidea as this genus 

 has been delimited in my previous papers:" It is of about the average 

 size of those foimd in the Potomac formation of Maryland and the Lakota 

 formation of the Black Hills. Although much compressed laterally, the 

 shape is ovate or subconical, tapering uniformly from base to near the 

 summit, where it is rounded off. It is much more flattened above than 

 below, and the compression has been chiefly on one side, where the scars 

 are distorted, and above the middle there is a deep and large circular 

 depression, as if a stone had lain upon that part and forced the surface 

 inward. This pressure seems also to have come more from above, so as 

 to make the scars downwardly appressed. The upper edge is thin and 

 a small triangular pie(;e has been broken out of it a little one side of 

 where the axis comes through. There is no distin(;t terminal bud, but 

 neither is there any depression caused ])y the loss of the apical leaves. 

 The base is very even and smooth, looking almost as if it had been ground. 



a Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, Vol. IX, April 9, 1894, p. 79; Vol. XI, March 31 , ISitT, pp. G-9: Proc. U. S 

 Nat. Mus., Vol. XXI, 1898, pp. 196-229; Nineteenth Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Surv., Pt. II, 1899, pp. 598-602 



