NOVEMBEE SI, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



831 



execution liis personal views, uninfluenced by 

 the opinions of the scientific world. 



Franz Boas. 

 Columbia Uijwersity, 

 November 8, 1902. 



A CORRECTION OP PROFESSOR OSBORn's NOTE EN- 

 TITLED 'new VERTEBRATES OF THE MID- 

 CRETACEOUS.'* 



On page '675 of this article in speaking of 

 Ornithomimus Professor Osborn says: 'Mr. 

 Hatcher states that he found Marsh's type of 

 this genus, consisting of a foot and portion 

 of a limb, on Cow Island, Missouri Eiver, at 

 a level which he estimates from 1,500 to 

 1,600 feet below the summit of the Judith 

 Eiver beds, and 500 to 600 feet below the level 

 of Marsh's type of Ceratops montanus.' I 

 certainly did not mean to convey the impres- 

 sion that I had found the type of the genus, 

 but rather of the two species, 0. tenuis and 

 0. grandis. The type of the genus is 0. velox 

 and it was found in Colorado. The types of 

 the other two species are from Montana and 

 were found as Professor Osborn has stated, 

 except that they were not found on Cow Island 

 but near the foot of the bluffs on the north 

 bank of the Missouri River, opposite Cow 

 Island and just below the mouth of Cow 

 Creek. Since this same error occurs also in 

 Professor Osborn's ' Distinctive Characters of 

 the Mid-Cretaceous Fauna' (ISTo. 1, Part 2, 

 Vol. 3, Contr. to Can. Pal.), I have thought 

 it best to make the above correction. 



Again, on page 673 of Professor Osborn's 

 note in Science he says : ' * * * the true 

 Judith Eiver beds certainly overlie the Ft. 

 Pierre and are of more recent age.' I do 

 not know upon what authority Professor Os- 

 born makes this unqualified statement as to 

 the deposits underlying the Judith Eiver 

 beds. It certainly does not agree with my 

 ovni observations made during several weeks 

 passed in collecting vertebrate fossils from 

 these beds, nor with the published statements 

 of Meek, Hayden and others, as will appear 

 from the following : " They fthe Judith Eiver 

 beds) sippear, as near as could be ascertained, 

 to occupy a local basin in a series of marine 



* Sconce, N. S., Vol. XVI., October 24, 1902, 

 pp. 673-676. 



deposits, consisting of beds of sandstone and 

 impure lignite, which we have regarded pro- 

 visionally as of the age of No. 1 of our gen- 

 eral section. Lower down the Missouri, near 

 the mouth of Little Eocky Mountain Creek, 

 this last-mentioned series of rocks upon which 

 the fresh-water deposits repose at the mouth 

 of the Judith is clearly seen to pass beneath 

 No. 4 (the Pierre shales) of the general sec- 

 tion." * During my work in this region in 

 1888 and again in 1892 I nowhere saw the 

 Pierre underlying the true Judith Eiver beds, 

 although at that time I believed it belonged 

 beneath these beds, not then being familiar 

 with the work of Dawson, Tyrrell and other 

 Canadian geologists. I remember, however, to 

 have noticed some 300 or 400 feet of shales 

 very similar to the Pierre overlying the Ju- 

 dith Eiver beds along the old Ft. Benton and 

 Cow Island trail between the Bear Paw Moun- 

 tains and Cow Creek, and I have little doubt 

 but that these are the representatives of the 

 Pierre shales in this region. 



The fact that Cretaceous Nos. 2 and 3 are 

 entirely wanting in this region leads to the 

 inference that they are represented by the 

 lower members of the Judith Eiver beds, and 

 that the lower members of these beds are in 

 reality older than the oldest of the Belly 

 Eiver series, a little farther north. Owing to 

 the scarcity and fragmentary nature of verte- 

 brate fossils in the Judith Eiver beds they 

 have not received the attention from verte- 

 brate paleontologists that they deserve and 

 from several points of view no more fruitful 

 field awaits the collector than these deposits. 

 They need to be thoroughly explored for verte- 

 brate and invertebrate fossils, and their some- 

 what complicated stratigraphy must be care- 

 fully worked out in detail before we shall be 

 able to fix with any degree of certainty either 

 their upper or their lower limits. Beds of 

 fresh-water, brackish and marine origin are 

 here known to be interstratified with the upper 

 and lower limits of deposits usually referred 

 to the Judith Eiver beds, and I should not be 

 at all surprised that within the region lying 

 along the eastern base of the Eocky Moun- 



* Meek and Hayden, Proc. Phil. Acad. 8ci., May, 

 1857, pp. 124-125. 



