ON FOSSIL LEAVES FROM FORT ELLSWORTH, NET5RASKA. 



433 



closely related to 0. Heerii. I copy here the diagram of Prof. Hilgard, which compara- 

 tively shows, in or, the deposit where this Cinnamomum was found, while plants of the yel- 

 low clay, Sahal, &c, were collected at c. 



Section of Lignitic strata at Eagland's Branch. 



On this remarkable section the author says : " The stratum of greenish-yellow sand, a, 

 contains impressions of leaves chiefly of a Cinnamomum not unlike Sassafras ; c, is a bed 

 of yellowish-white clay of irregular, or thickly laminated cleavage, containing numerous 

 leaves of Sabal, also a variety of other, chiefly dicotyledonous plants, which seem to be 

 identical with species found in the red shale of Tippah. In the yellow sand at d, imme- 

 diately overlying the clay stratum, there occur large billets of silicified wood, the interior 

 of which is black. The bed of the branch of the northern half of the bluff is formed by 

 blue clay, c, of massy cleavage, similar to No. I of sections 18 and 19, which appears to 

 underlie horizontally. The northern dip of the strata of the outcrop seems therefore to 

 be owing to a fault or landslide." As in section 18, mentioned above, the blue clay, e, 

 underlies the red shale with plants, I would rather suppose, from this diagram, that the 

 northern dip is due to some local uplift, and that consequently the stratum, a, is at a 

 lower station than the leaves bearing clay, c. If it is otherwise, and if this bed, a, is true 

 Northern Lignitic, we have in its fossil Cinnamomum the first and only direct link of 

 connection between this formation and the Upper Cretaceous of Nebraska. 



vol. xni. — 55 



