Mineralogy and Geology. 115 
In addition to the Catalogue of Minerals it contains about fou 
pages of, “ Notes on the Geogr a Distribution and Geology of the 
Precious Metals” “on the Pacific slo 
These “ Notes” contain statements “appa rently so entirely at variance 
with the facts I detailed in the résumé mentioned, that, unless answered, 
they are not only calculated to mislead those who are interested in the 
history of geological discovery in California, but also to call in question 
the pigeons | of some e those facts; as well as the statements relat- 
ing to them in the various publications of the cog Bee 
survey. The official hawaii of this document gives t rkable 
statements and claims it puts forth their principal weight, mes detnasde 
that they be carefully examined, particularly as regards those differences 
which exist between these statements on the one side, and those pub- 
especially important as it relates to the question, who first demonstrated 
and first published the Secondary age of the auriferous rocks of Cali- 
Sornia, Blake says: 
“ After years of laborious ae for fossils by which the age of the ge 
bearing rocks might be mined, I had the pleasure, early in 1863, t 
obtain a s ecimen contai inde Aeimin ites, fom a locality on the hee. 
River, preserved in the cabinet of Mr. Spe This fossil was of extreme 
importance, being insdivadtive of the Secondary: age of the gold-bearing or i 
and was therefore eee ed, and copies of it sent to the Smithsonian 
Institution at Washington, for description. It was subsequently weno in 
the Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences, Sept. 1864.” 
(Page 28 of pam phiet.) 
We 
in plate (for similar fossils found not in place had been known several 
years earlier); (2,) that it was sufficiently well brsianetd to be determined, 
and even from a photograph ; and (3,) that its secondary age was published 
i a,” ferri 
in Sept. 1 ng to his ori r, (Proc. Acad. 
ii, p. 167, which was no apeoes until December, 1864,) the 
following additional information: “ not certain whether the speci- 
men was taken from the slates in hele or broken from a loose mass.” 
are néw or re or even whether they are ammonites or ceratites.” This 
? 
announcement was made a year (and it was not published until three 
months set after the Geological aiid had taken nearly twent 
recognizable species of Jurassic and Triassic fossils from the auriferous 
gn 
slates, and also later than the publioation yeti Prof. Whitney’s announce- 
ment in this Journal of the Secondary age of the formation. I leave out 
in the true slates, near Pence Ranch, in 1862, and the other discoveries 
of fossils before Sept. 1864, which are noticed in the Report on the 
Geology of California. 
He observes again: 
“The same year, when at Bear Valley, Mariposa county, upon the chief 
goldboaring rocks of California, I identified a group of Secondary fossils 
the slates contiguous to the Pine Tree Vein, and noticed them at a meet- 
ing of the on sion Academy, Oct. 3, 1864, announcing the Jurassic or 
Cretaceous of these slates. The best characterized fossil was a Plagi- 
ostoma,” ket (Ib.) 
