187 



between the great Cretaceous sea that covered so much of what is now 

 the central portion of our continent on the one side and the Pacific on the 

 other."../' It is the more remarkable when taken into connection with 

 the fact, that of the more than three hundred species now known in the 

 California Cretaceous, barely one per cent, is found in common on the 

 two sides of the continent. "..." From the occurrence in California of 

 Gryphcea vesicularis and TurriteUa seriatim-granulata , determined with 

 certainty, and of Nautilus Texanus and Volutilithes Navarroensis, yet 

 open to doubt, it seems that there was not a continuous land barrier 



between the two basins." "It is very probable that future explorations 



in the yet unknown region between the Saskatchewan and the Pacific, 

 north of our boundaries, will develop a more or less continuous series of 

 Cretaceous deposits showing a similar link on the north. "..." The pre- 

 sence of A7n?nonites complexus on Vancouver Island and in California, and 

 the known existence of Cretaceous beds in Eastern Oregon and north- 

 west of the great lakes, render this hj^jothesis not improbable." * 



The results of the most recent explorations in the Vancouver Creta- 

 ceous are decidedly in favour of the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Gabb, 

 and the hypothesis of a continuous land banner between the oceans of 

 the period is scarcely tenable in the present state of our knowledge of 

 the subject. Mr. Eichardson's collections, so far as they go, show that 

 the faunre of the Upper Cretaceous of Vancouver and Texas are even 

 more closely related than are those of the same period in California and 

 Texas, and the missir.g link between the two Cretaceous oceans to the 

 north-westwards is also, to a certain extent, supj^lied by these Vancouver 

 fossils. Inclusive of those described in the present report, the exact 

 number of named species of marine invertebrata now known from the 

 Vancouver Uj^per Cretaceous is one hundred and eight, and eighteen of 

 these are believed to occur also in rocks of the same age on the eastern 

 side of the Eocky Mountains, as shown more in detail in the subjoined 

 lists. 



1. Species common to the Upper Ci'etaceous of Vancouver and Texas, 



(A. In Mr. Richardson's collections.) 



Fulguraria Navarroensis. 1 Inoceramus mytilopsis. 



Anatina sulcatina. * Terebratula Wacoensis. 



Inoceramus undulato-plicatus. 



Palaeontology of California, Vol. II,, pp. 257, 25S. 



