278 MESOZOIC FLORAS OB^ UNITED STATES. 



In announcing these results in 1887 Doctor Newberrj^ says: 

 These plants prove beyond question that the Great Falls coal basin is of the 

 same age with those that have been described north of the boundary line by Dr. 

 George M. Dawson, in what he has designated as the Kootanie series. Judging 

 from the absence of dicotyledonous leaves, this formation, like that of Kome, 

 Greenland, belongs to the lower half of the Cretaceous system, and is older than 

 the Dakota group." 



In a paper by Sir William Dawson published in 1888* and containing 

 a section designed to show the successive floras and subfloras of the 

 Cretaceous in Canada, he sa^'^s: 



The Kootanie series should probably be placed at the base of the table as a 

 representative of the Urgonian or Neocomian, or, at the very least, should be held 

 as not newer than the Shasta group of the United States geologists, and the Lower 

 Sandstones and Shales of the Queen Charlotte Islands. It would seem to corre- 

 spond in the character of its fossil plants wdth the oldest Cretaceous floras recognized 

 in Ein-ope and Asia, and with that of the Kome formation in Greenland, as described 

 hj Heer. No similar flora seems j^et to have been distinctly recognized in the 

 UTnited States, except, perhaps, that of the beds in Maryland, holding cycads, 

 wliich were referred many years ago by Tyson to the Wealden. . 



When the railroad then in construction from Helena to Great Falls 

 reached the latter town, some of the cuttings passed through shales con- 

 taining lenticular nodules of iron ore which had formed around vegetable 

 matter, and these nodules when broken open often revealed impressions 

 of plants, some of them very clear. Mr. Williams collected some of these 

 and sent them to Professor Dana, who submitted them to Doctor New- 

 berry for determination. The latter gave the results of his examination 

 in a paper published in 1891.'' In this paper 8 new species are described 

 and figured, but the collection contained in addition 11 species that 

 Professor Fontaine had described from the Potomac formation in Virginia. 

 These were identified by Professor Fontaine himself, to whom Doctor 

 Newberry had sent the specimens. It also contained a considerable 

 numioer of species occurring in the Lower Cretaceous deposits, especially 

 from the Kome beds of Greenland. Three of the species were among 

 those found in the Kootanie of Alberta. 



« School of Mines Quarterly, Vol. VIII, July, 1887, p. 329. 



b Cretaceous floras of the Northwest Territories of Canada, by Sir William Dawson: Am. Naturalist, Vol. 

 XXII, November, 1888, pp. 953-959. 



<-' Flora of the Great Falls coal field, Montana, by J. S. Newberry ; Am. Journ. Sci., 3d ser., Vol. XLI, March , 

 1891, pp. 191-201, pi. xiv. 



