WARD.] THE OROVILLE FLORA. 341 
wholly unsettled. One of these collections was made at the stamp mill 
of the Banner mine, and the other half a mile south of the Banner 
mine, on the right or north bank of Feather River, These collections 
came to Washington, and were transmitted to me through the Geologi- 
cal Survey, by Mr. Turner, at the end of J anuary, 1895, along with 
the Mariposa fern above mentioned. They were sent to Professor 
Fontaine for determination on April 9, and his report upon them bears 
date April 22, 1895. 
In an article on the Age and Succession of the Igneous Rocks of the 
Sierra Nevada,' Mr. Turner, to whom I sent a copy of the report, pub- 
lished it in full (pp. 395, 396). Professor Fontaine's conclusion, as 
expressed in the last paragraph of this report, is as follows: 
Taking all the evidence, I think it can be positively said that this flora is not older 
than the uppermost Trias, and not younger than the Oolite. I feel pretty sure that 
it istrue Rhetic, somewhat younger than the Los Bronces flora of N ewberry, and the 
Virginia Mesozoic coal strata. It is much like the Rhetic flora of France, made 
known by Saporta. At any rate, this is a new grouping of plants that certainly 
deserves to be carefully collected. I do not think the fossils now in hand suffice to 
fix narrowly the age, which may be lower Jurassic. 
While operating in the Sacramento Valley in the autumn of that same 
year, having Mr. James Storrs as my assistant, I thought best, in view 
of the meagerness of the previous collections and of the importance of 
this, the only paleontological evidence that these beds furnish, to visit 
the localities and endeavor to obtain more and better material. We 
reached Oroville on September 25, and proceeded on the 26th to the 
Banner mine. We spent three days in the work, first collecting from 
the dumps around the deep shafts, then on the bank of the river, with 
some measure of success. At last we entered a deep ravine that leads 
from the mine to the river, and here we found the rocks far better 
exposed and made a very fine collection, containing large slabs with 
impressions of great spreading pinne of Ctenis, Ctenophyllum, Tzeni- 
opteris, Macroteniopteris, ete. Six large boxes were thus quickly 
filled and were shipped to Washington, arriving in good condition in 
November. 
I worked this material over with much care during the winter, and 
not wishing to reship it on account of its fragile nature, I arranged with 
Professor Fontaine to come to Washington during his summer vacation 
of 1896 and elaborate it in the United States National Museum. This 
he did in July. As it would necessarily be some time before the draw- 
ings could be made and the first report published, Professor Fontaine 
consented to prepare a preliminary paper embodying the principal 
results, which appeared in October of that year.” Tt unfortunately 
seemed necessary to publish the list of species, including the new ones, 
1Jour. Geol., Vol. III, May-June, 1895, pp. 385-414. ; ; me ; 
2 Ne ae on some Mesozoic plants from near Oroville, California, by Wm. M. Fontaine: Am. Jour. Sci., 
October, 1896, 4th series, Vol. II, pp. 273-275. 
