434 JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES VOL. 13, No. 20 
Decatur in the summer of 1911 without, however, any success in 
obtaining identifiable fossils. No additional attempt at settling the 
question was made until the summer of 1923 when Stephenson re- 
visited the locality, and collected a small amount of poor material 
which was submitted to the writer. Although, as just stated, this 
material was as badly macerated and poorly preserved as previous 
collections, it contained one form that appears to be certainly identi- 
fiable, and several others that it was found possible to name tentatively. 
These indicate that the deposit is Upper and not Lower Cretaceous 
in age, thus confirming the earlier opinion of the Alabama Geological 
Survey. This conclusion seems important enough to warrant the 
present note and to justify the appearance in print of the evidence 
upon which it is based. 
The species positively determined represents Araucarian cone- 
scales, first discovered in west Greenland, and named Dammara 
borealis by Heer.® The Alabama specimens are shown in the ac- 
companying figures 5 and 6. This species has been recorded from a 
large number of localities in both North America and Europe, but 
since the various known species of Dammara have very similar cone- 
scales too much reliance can not be placed upon specific determination. 
All of the known fossil species of Dammara are, however, Upper 
Cretaceous in age. In this country Dammara borealis has been 
recorded from the Raritan, Tuscaloosa, Magothy and Black Creek 
formations, and since all of these occurrences except the first were 
identified by the present writer, and thus may be presumed to repre- 
sent the same species of Dammara, their occurrence at Olid Fort 
Decatur points to an age certainly not older and possibly consider- 
ably younger than the Cenomanian stage of the European Upper 
Cretaceous. 
TABLE I 
: : 
= 
io] a 
elas A | 3 : 
: 1 fea 
«|6 meee leg | a eee 
2 Fa a aI A a - < 3S 
° m ‘a & a +2) a n & 
SAN ta car eeeaniene 4) Sater hte, OR: ae 
4 a & & ti a ° Qa i] = 
; eC ete aoe So oes 
ae WP fe = 
Ee r=) A a =) 4 Bs z a a 
Cycadinocarpus circularis.............+.| & | & rg 
POMIMONG OONCOIS cae al ules vlogs wr a + x les x x 
Diospyros PrIMGvG.v ice eee ea | we] ow PR PX |X | Ky XK pe 
UNG UCRELACEG SIA Ge ones ee ee ae x x 
GME JLECUORD seat atdy heiress ae at ase oe Ps ||! an ee, a he ial >, @ xX | xX 
5’ Heer, O., Fl. Foss. Arct., 6: Abt. 2: 54, pl. 37, fig. 5. 1882. 
