186 



the equivalent in time of the whole of the Upper as distinguished from the 

 Middle Cretaceous, or, in other words, of all those deposits which inter- 

 vene between the Gault and the Eocene. The four lower divisions of 

 these coal fields are almost certainly Upper Cretaceous, but at present 

 there is no jjositive evidence to show whether the three iipper Divisions 

 are Cretaceous or Tertiary. In California the Martinez Group has never 

 been seen resting directly upon the Chico, nor the Tejon upon the Mar- 

 tinez, but in the Vancouver Upper Cretaceous the strati graphical se- 

 quence of the different Divisions is complete throughout. The local names 

 given by the California geologists to the principal groups of the Upper 

 Cretaceous rocks as developed in that Slate, lose all their significance 

 when applied to the corresponding deposits on Vancouver and the ad- 

 jacent islands in the Georgian Strait, 



In an appendix to one of Mr. Richardson's reports, Mr. Billings 

 remarks : " According to the researches of Mr. F. B. Meek and Dr. F. V. 

 Hayden in Nebraska, and of Mr. W. M. Gabb in California, the fossils of 

 the Cretaceous formation on the east side of the Rocky Mountains are 

 nearly all specifically distinct from those that occur in rocks of the same 

 age on the west side." " This would seem to establish the existence of a 

 land barrier between the two regions at an early period, and upon this 

 land most probably grew the plants whose remains occur so abun- 

 dantly in the rocks in question." * In Mr. Meek's monograph of the Cre- 

 taceous fossils of the Upper Missouri Country, published in 1876, the 

 onl}^ species described as jjossibly common to the Cretaceous rocks of 

 that region and to those of California and Vancouver Island, is Ammonites 

 covij^lexus. The last edition of Prof. Dana's Manual of Geology, dated 

 1874, contains a map of North America as it appeared in the Cretaceous 

 period, in which the limits of this su^^posed land barrier are distinctly 

 defined, (except to the north-westwards,) its genei*al direction being 

 rejiresented as nearly coincident with that of the main axis of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



The same facts, however, are capable of an entirely different interpre- 

 tation, as may be seen by the following quotation from the second vol- 

 ume of the Palseontology of California. "The occui-rence of the Cre- 

 taceous fauna on the western face of the Sierra Madre, " Mr. Gabb says, 

 in a passage which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Billings and 

 Prof. Dana, " is a matter of great interest, since it proves conclusively 

 that during that era there must have been a water communication 



•^ Geological Siu'vey of Canada. Report of Progress for 1872-73, p. 71. 



