1893. ] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 227 
fossil leaves and fruit from these strata—a discovery the impor- 
tance of which we can only appreciate fully in the light of 
investigations made within the past few years, inasmuch as some 
of these can now be identified with well-recognized cretaceous 
species subsequently found in New Jersey, Staten Island, Long 
Island and Martha’s Vineyard itself. Prominent among Prof. 
Hitchcock’s specimens from the latter locality are certain ‘‘ pear- 
shaped seeds,” in regard to which he says: ‘‘It seems to me 
very obvious that these remains must be the seed vessels of 
coniferous plants””—an observation which shows a very acute 
appreciation of their probable affinities, as the same objects 
have been found abundantly throughout the localities mentioned 
and have been considered as Dammara or possibly Eucalyptus 
by more recent investigators, as will be noticed more fully 
further on. 
In 1849, there appeared an article by M. E. Desor and E. C, 
Cabot, ‘‘On the Tertiary and more recent Deposits in the 
Island of Nantucket,”’* in which they refer to the resemblance 
between the clay at Sankaty, Nantucket, Truro on Cape Cod 
and Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard, which are all referred to 
as probably Tertiary and the conclusion is reached that “Thus 
the Tertiary cliffs of Gay Head should no longer be looked 
upon as an isolated fact, but the cliffs of Sancati may be con- 
sidered as the opposite outcrop of a large tertiary basin, 
underlying the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard 
and extending to the south below Long Island and to the 
north as far as Truro.” 
In August, 1859, William Stimpson visited Martha’s Vineyard 
and confirmed Prof. Hitchcock’s conclusion in regard to the 
cretaceous age of certain of the strata}, having collected both 
animal and vegetable remains. The notice in regard to this 
excursion is, however, very meagre. 
At the meeting of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 
Sciences on June 2, 1868, E. D. Cope gave an account of his 
discovery of the fresh-water origin of sands and clays in west 
New Jersey, on the Delaware River.above Camden, which he 
found to contain leaves of dicotyledonous trees, ctenoid fish 
scales and numerous unionidey}, 
The prosecution of the New Jersey Geological Survey, under 
Geo. H. Cook, from 1865 to 1887, with its various reports and 
maps, gave not only exact descriptions of the cretaceous strata 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. London, y. 340-344 (1849). 
+ ‘Cretaceous Strata at Gay Head, Mass.” (Am. Journ. Sci. Xxix, 145 (1860), 
+ Proc, Acad. Nat. Sci. Phil. xx. 157-158 (1868). 
