KNowLTON.] EXPLORATION. 13 



But the Icttor of transniitttil to the thiMi Socrotai-y of the. Interior bears 

 date of TsovciuIxT 1, ISSo, and as tlii.s must have prec-eded b}^ some 

 montlis the actual issue of the \'ohMni', it is ch'tir that Newberry's 

 paper has pi'ecedem-e, and all names of species established by him, 

 when in conllict with those oivcn l)y Les(iuereux, nmst stand. 



By far the laru-est collection of fossil plants from this rej^ion was 

 made in the sunnner of 1880 by Maj. (then Capt.) C'harles E. Bendire, 

 of the United States Army, who made a short tour through the 

 basin with a laroe party of the Seventh United States Cavalry. He 

 collected at Bridge Creek. Cherry Creek, and Van Horn's ranch, 

 securino- mainly plants, but also a few lish and mammal remains, and 

 this entire collection was presented by him to the United States 

 National Museum. The fish remains were described by Cope," and 

 the plants were submitted to Lesquereux, whose report on those from 

 Van Horn's ranch and Cherrv Creek was piU^lished in 1888.* Les- 

 quereux's report on the Brido-c Creek material was prepared and sub- 

 mitted at the same time, but on account of the difficulty in securing 

 tioures of the supposed new species, was not published. This manu- 

 script has been in my hands for some years awaiting revision, and, so 

 far as possil)le, has been incorporated in the present work. 



As a piellminary to the preparation of this work, I went over 

 very carefully every specimen in the collection of the United States 

 National Museum from Van Horn's ranch and Cherry Creek, as pub- 

 lished upon by Lesquereux. In the case of the specimens from Van 

 Horn's ranch the matrix is so distinctive that no difficulty was experi- 

 enced in making certain that they actually came from this localit}'^, 

 but when the collection from Cherry Creek was taken up, it at once 

 became evident that some mixing of specimens must have occurred. 

 Lescpiereux enumerated thirty species in his paper above quoted, 

 but they are preserved on very different kinds of matrix and ^-epre- 

 sent certain well-known species that have never before been reported 

 from the John Da}^ region. Specimens of some of the matrix of the 

 suspected species were sent to Dr. Merriam, of the University of 

 California, for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had noted 

 matrix of this character at Cherry Creek. It proved to be wholly 

 unlike anything observed by him at this locality, thus in a measure 

 contirming my suspicion of a possil)le mixture. I am uncertain where 

 the doubtful specimens came from, but from the character of the 

 matrix as well as from the species represented, it seems more than 

 possil)le that they may have come froin the Green River beds of 

 Wyoming. As doubt was thus cast on all of the Cherry Creek 

 material in the United States National Museum collection, I visited 

 the locality myself in the sunmier of 1901, in company with Dr. 

 Merriam, and made as full a collection as possible. This absolutely 



a Am. Nat. Vol. XXIII, 1889, p. 625. b Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. XI, pp. 13-24, Pis. V-XIV. 



