CRETACEOUS FAUNA. 58 



Other Cretaceous.] 



OTHER CRETACEOUS FOSSILS IN MINNESOTA. 



In the course of the survey in different parts of the state fossils from the Cretaceous have been 

 found, sometimes obtained from beds in outcrop, and sometimes from the drift. In order that this volume 

 may contain all that is known of the fauna of the Cretaceous, so far as referable to the state, these 

 scattered data are presented herewith. 



Mr. J. H. Kloos reported the existence of the Cretaceous in the Sauk valley in 1872,* where it was 

 described as lying on the Archean granites, but separated from them by a layer of kaolin. Fossils found 

 near Richmond were identified for him by Mr. F. B. Meek. They consisted of casts of Inoceramus proble- 

 maticus, impressions apparently of Ammonites percarinatus, scales of cycloid flshes, and a small shark's 

 tooth allied to Corax or Oaleus. Scaphites larviformis, or some nearly allied form, was also recognized by 

 some drawings sent Mr. Meek. These fossils were thought to be indicative of the Fort Benton group. 

 Kloos also reported Baculites from Nobles county, and states thatthe highest beds of the Cretaceous series 

 probably exist in the southern part of the state. 



Cretaceous outcrops are described in the first and second annual reports, but no fossils, except such 

 as are mentioned in the report of Dr. Lesquereux (foregoing), were named. 



In 1873, Rev. E. Alden presented the survey with some Cretaceous materials obtained in sinking a 

 well near Marshall, in Lyon county, at 36 feet below the surface. Along with some shale and lignite were 

 the fossils Nucula caneellata M. and H., and Placenticeras placenta Dekay (sp), museum register numbers 

 2279 and 2282, indicating the Fort Pierre or Fox Hills group. These were said to have been obtained in a 

 bed of "fossiliferous clay." 



In 1880, Mr. Warren Upham collected specimens of Cretaceous fossils on the west bank of the Missis- 

 sippi river, " 40 rods southeast of the mouth of the Main Two rivers," in Morrison county, which he identi- 

 fied (see vol. ii, final report, p, 602) as Margaritana, very nearly allied to M. nebrascensis M. and H. ,"from which 

 it differs in having no considerable depression or corrugation on the sides," a Unio, probably U. dance, M. 

 and H., and Unio subspatulatus M. and H. Associated with these is a seam of lignite, and a -bed of clay 

 resembling bauxite. He also reports a perfect tooth of Otodus appendiculatus Ag., found on a sand-bar of 

 Two rivers about a quarter of a mile above its mouth. 



In 1878, Mr. 0. L. Herrick found some Cretaceous limestone fragments, and rounded limestone 

 pebbles at lake Minnetonka in the drift. These contain fragments of the bones, plates, scales and teeth, 

 of fish, and impressions of some mollusks resembling Ostrea congesta Con., and of a small shell that 

 appears to be Necera ventricosa M. and H. These are museum register Nos. 5138 and 5144. The limestone 

 apparently is from the Niobrara, but Necera is not known from this horizon, but from the Fox Hills group. 



In 1884, Mr. S. F. Alberger, of Mankato, was using a siliceous Cretaceous conglomerate to supply 

 silica to clay which he employed for fire-brick, t In the coarser screenings were found numerous rounded, 

 fragments of corals and brachiopods. Favositoids, cyathophylloids and masses of amorphous chert were 

 most numerous. A well preserved Heliolites points to the existence of the Niagara as a formation able to 

 supply such gravel to the waters of. the Cretaceous ocean in that vicinity. This fact goes with others, 

 mentioned in this volume, to indicate that the Niagara of Iowa probably was connected once with that of 

 Manitoba. 



Prof. A. F. Bechdolt has found from time to time, Cretaceous fossils in the vicinity of Mankato, viz. 

 a fish-tooth in the sand of the alluvium of Le Sueur river, a vertebra of a fish, distinctly osseous, from fer- 

 ruginous sand and gravel thrown out of a ditch dug for city water. This vertebra is biconcave and an 

 inch and a half in length and an inch across the ends. The sides are buttressed as if with remnants of 

 processes. He also reports the finding in a bank of clay formerly used for pottery, on Glenwood av., Man- 

 kato. of a number of pieces of shaly limestone with Inoceramus very plainly marked upon them. 



In 1888, some Cretaceous fossils were found by the writer in an unorganized township in Redwood 

 county (T. Ill, 38). These had been thrown out from excavations for cellars, or in digging wells. They 

 are museum register Nos. 6742^45. The first is Scaphifes nodosus var. quadrangularis M. and H., the sec- 

 ond Inoceramus cripsii var. barabini Norton, the third is Lucina occidentalis Morton sp.. anrt the fourth 

 Viviparus raynoldsanus M. and H, The first three are Fort Pierre species and the last is known as a 

 species of the Fort Union group. 



*A Cretaceous basin in the Sauk valley, Minnesota. J. H. Kloos, Am Jour. Sci. (3), III, 17; 1872. 



This locality and all the phenomena were described by Mr. Kloos subsequently at greater length in Zeit. d. Ges. f. Erd. 

 zu Berlin, Bd. xii, 1877, of which a translation was published in the 19th annual report of the Minnesota survey. 



^Thirteenth Annual Report, p. 144, 



