216 ■ ■ ■ 



A few marine plants are foaml. but no land vegetation, except an 

 occasional fragment of fossil wood. The absence of terrestrial plants is 

 the more remarkable, as extinct birds and numerous amphibians indi- 

 cate that dry land must have existed. 



One tine species of crinoid of a new genus was occasionally found by 

 our party in 1875. ISfo radiate had before been seen in the Kansas Cre- 

 taceous. 



Of m oil usks, the most common are Ostrea co7ig€sta and Tnoceramus 

 .prohlematicus. Less common, but still seen in many strata, are frag- 

 ments of the large Haploscaplm^ with occasionally a perfect specimen. 

 Another large bivalve we have never seen described measures from 

 30 to 33 inches in length. It is thin, with a transverse fiber like the 

 Inocerami, and always lies crushed flat in numerous fragments, but lying 

 in their normal position. A few Gryphea ; also fragments, frequently 

 weighing ten pounds, of a large Hivpurites near E.. Toncasianus. Near 

 ■Bheridan, we recently discovered a bed of BacuUtes ovatus. Almost all 

 the shells and fragments are covered in part by the Ostrea congesta, which 

 abound everywhere. 



But the great feature of this subdivision of the Cretaceous consists 

 in its varied and rare forms of vertebrate fossils. Two seasons, of six 

 months each (1874 and 1875), have been spent by myself with two 

 assistants in collecting these vertebrates for Yale College, and yet the 

 deposit is but partially explored, and we are constantly discovering new 

 ■forms. 



The least interesting are the fish, which have, however, given us 

 many new species and some new genera. The small ones are nearly 

 entire, but the larger are represented only by well-preserved portions of 

 the skeletons. Teeth of Salachians were quite common. At one locality 

 nver 400 were collected in an area of 30 inches, and apparently from the 

 jaws of one individual — a Ptycodiis — and all in excellent preservation. 

 Ji^rofessor Cope, in his " Cretaceous Vertebrata," has described thirty- 

 six species, and some twenty others have quite recently been found. In 

 1872, only twenty-four species had been collected from Kansas. The 

 most novel is a new genus (three, species), which had a snout appended 

 to the skull, like the sword of the sword-fish, but conical in shape, com- 

 posed of a compact bundle of fibers. In the largest species, this snout 

 is about fifteen inches long and one and a half in diameter at the base. 

 Professor Cope has a representation of a portion of the jaws in Plate 

 XLYIII, figs. 3-8, under the name of Erisictlie nitida. But, unfortu- 

 nately, his specimen did not embrace the snout or much of the skull, 

 so that a correct idea of the fish is not obtained from his description. 

 Professor Marsh has a dozen specimens, recently obtained by us, from 

 which a more detailed description may be made. 



In individuals, the fish were quite numerously represented. In the 

 season of 1875, our party saw, according to my note-book, 1,207 speci- 

 mens, without counting the teeth of sharks. Many of these, however, 

 were so fragmentary that we did not collect them. The genera For. 

 ilvus and Empo were most abundant. 



Several species of marine turtle have been obtained. One described 

 by Cope, Protostega gigas, was 15 feet in the expanded flipper. The 

 type is embryonic. This is seen in the structure of the ribs, which are 

 nore free and detached from the dermal plates of the carapace than 

 those now living. The other species were much smaller. 



Less in number but of more importance are the reptiles of the croc- 

 odile and Saurian type. My note-book shows 476 specimens seen by 

 our party in 1875, of which one-half might be called good, and some of 



