102 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Owen’s report of a Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, 
ete. (1852) ; T. Conrad’s paleontological supplement to the first volume 
of Emory’s report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey 
(1857) ; and F. B. Meek’s paleontological supplement to Prof. Hind’s re- 
port on the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition (1859). 
Mr. Etheridge, naturally and very properly, tried to identify the Cre- 
taceous fossils collected by Sir James Hector, with those species which 
they most nearly resemble in one or other of these publications. An 
analysis of his published lists shows that as many as nineteen of these 
fossils are determined specifically, viz., eleven from Manitoba and the 
Northwest Territories, and eight additional species from Vancouver 
Island, but it must also be borne in mind that, of these nineteen, four 
belong to the genus Ostrea and five to Inoceramus, both of which are gen- 
era in which the species are unusually difficult to discriminate. No less 
than seven of the species from Manitoba or the Northwest Territories, 
and seven others from Vancouver Island are referred by Mr. Etheridge to 
Texan species described and figured by Roemer or Conrad. 
The extensive collections made of late years by the officers and 
employees of the Geological Survey of Canada have, however, conclusively 
shown that the fossils of the Cretaceous rocks of Manitoba and the North- 
west Territories bear a much greater resemblance to those of the Creta- 
ceous rocks of the upper Missouri country as described long ago by Meek 
and Hayden and more recently illustrated by Meek, than they do to the 
organic remains of Texas or New Jersey. Several species of fossils, too, 
from the “ Nanaimo group” of the Vancouver Cretaceous have since been 
described by Meek and other paleontologists, and it has long been known 
to Canadian geologists that the fauna of this formation is essentially simi- 
lar to that of the Chico group of the California Cretaceous and by no 
means so closely analogous to the fauna of the Cretaceous rocks border- 
ing upon the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. ‘The fossils collected by Sir 
James Hector are found to harmonize perfectly with these general con- 
clusions, and in the present state of our knowledge of the fossil fauna of 
the Canadian Cretaceous it is now feasible to determine the species repres- 
ented in the collection sent, with a greater degree of accuracy than was 
possible upwards of thirty years ago. 
The specimens which could not be found at Burlington House, and 
which may have been transferred to the British Museum, and, therefore, 
could not be forwarded to the writer, are as follows : 
All the fossils from Coal Creek (Red Deer River, Alberta), men- 
tioned on page 425 of Sir James Hector’s paper, viz. : 
Ostrea anomiæformis. Crassatella. 
Mytilus (2 species). Venus. 
Cardium multistriatum, Rostellaria. 
Paludina. 
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