vol. 50 1907 



Smithsonian 

 Miscellaneous Collections 



Vol. IV Quarterly issue Part i 



NOTES ON SOME UPPER CRETACEOUS VOLUTID.E, 



WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW SPECIES AND A 



REVISION OF THE GROUPS TO WHICH 



THEY BELONG l 



By WILLIAM HEALEY DALL 



While engaged in the study of the Tertiary fauna of Coos Bay, 

 Oregon, it became necessary for me to investigate the systematic 

 position of certain forms of Volutes which were contained in it. 

 Their relations to certain Upper Cretaceous forms had been assumed 

 and they had even been referred to the same genus. An investiga- 

 tion of the question was made possible by the kindness of Dr. T. W. 

 Stanton, of the U. S. Geological Survey, in whose official province 

 the Cretaceous forms belong and who placed at my disposition for 

 study all the material which he had brought together. 2 



An examination of these fossils showed that a larger number of 

 species existed than had been supposed, and that the Upper Cre- 

 taceous seems to have been marked by an efflorescence of related 

 large Volutes in all parts of the world where the fauna of that 

 period has been explored. A comparison of these groups of species 

 with each other and with our American forms, a revision of their 

 systematic arrangement, a description of the new species and the 

 application of new names to those forms which had been described 

 in the literature under names not properly applicable to them, have 

 been attempted in the present paper. 



1 Published by permission of the Director of the United States Geological 

 Survey. 



2 1 am also under obligations to Dr. J. F. Whiteaves, of the Dominion Geo- 

 logical Survey, and Dr. Ralph Arnold, of the U. S. Geological Survey, for the 

 loan of material and other courtesies. 



1 (1) 



