76 Ward — Fos.9il Cijcadean Triinls of 



of the Eocky Mountains, and Cretaceous and Jurassic strata un- 

 doubtedly crop out immediately above this locality. 



Early in the spring of 1893, the National Museum obtained 

 possession of a collection of six fine cycadean trunks from 

 parties residing at Hot Springs, South Dakota, who had collected 

 them at that vicinity.* One of these specimens measures thirty- 

 one inches in height and twenty-four in greatest diameter, and 

 weighs nine hundred pounds ; the others are comparatively 

 smaller, the smallest of all not exceeding a foot in height. Most 

 of them are considerably flattened, but one or two are nearly cir- 

 cular in cross section. One of them exhibits a number of lateral 

 branches, and in most cases the apex is depressed, forming the 

 "crows nests" so characteristic of the specimens from the Isle of 

 Portland, Dorsetshire, England. 



In the Geology of the Black Hills, prepared by Profes- 

 sors Newton and Jenney, from their survey of 1875, and 

 published at Washington in 1880, none of the Cretaceous 

 strata below the Dakota group of Meek and Hayden, are 

 recognized ; and while I presumed from the general his- 

 tory of this class of vegetation that these remains came out 

 of the Triassic Red Beds, or the overlying Jurassic, I was still 

 so greatly interested to ascertain their true source that early in 

 September last I made an expedition to the region, and in coop- 

 eration with Professor Jenney discovered the locality and made 

 further collections, including one very much branching and 

 very large trunk and many interesting fragments. All the re- 

 mains of this class that have been thus far found in the southern 

 part of the Black Hills, occur in the area map^jed as t)akota 

 group by Professor Newton, and, although no cycadean vege- 

 tation had yet been found amidst the extensive collections from 

 the Dakota group of Kansas, Nebraska, and other more eastern 

 localities, we were at first disposed to accept this as proof of their 

 occurrence at that horizon in this region. But the great im- 

 probability of this assumption led us to make a careful examina- 

 tion of the series that had been thus classed by Professor New- 

 ton. The result was that we came to the conclusion that the 

 Dakota group of Newton is much more extensive than the No. 1 

 of Meek and Hayden, and while the upper portion of it cer- 



*See Science, Vol. XXI, New York, June 30, 1893, p. 355. 



