372 OLDER MESOZOIC FLORAS OF UNITED STATES. 
him, through a letter dated September 12, a full statement of. his early 
operations in this field. In this letter Mr. Todd says: 
Yoursof August 18athand. Inclosed Isend you a drawing as I remember the place 
and which I think you will find very nearly correct. I revisited the place in 1896, 
and got all I could find in half an hour, but as they are in a solid bluff I think you 
will have little trouble if persevering in getting all you want. However, if you fail 
T havea lotin Eugene, Oregon, which you are quite welcome to if you can find them, 
but they will have to be sent me here for identification, I fear, as they are not all 
labeled. If you have occasion to visit Eugene go to Professor Condon and make your 
wants known. Then go to Horn & Pain’s gun store (Sporting Emporium) and look 
through the specimens I left there. Then go to the house on the corner of Fourteenth 
and Hilyard streets. I left some boxes there containing my duplicates packed up in 
their barn in boxes. Go through them and take what there is you want. All the 
Aucella in conglomerate came from Big Buck Mountain; those in lime from near 
Riddles or Big Pine; the ferns in shale from Big Buck Mountain. I gave Dr. Snapp, 
of Cottage Grove, Oregon, an order for these things, but I think he has never moved 
them nor does he care for the specimens. I know youcan get them if they have not 
been destroyed. I have forgotten the man’s name who.owns the house now. I am 
very sorry I did not get to accompany you in your work in that section. I have 
found it one of much interest. 
Let me hear of your success in visiting the old Buck Mountain fossils. I spent 
many an interesting day and night.roaming those hills, prospecting, hunting, and 
mining, during the early seventies, and my older brother was killed in Lookingglass 
the day I discovered this same fossil bed and about the time of day—thrown from a 
horse and dragged—in August, 1872. 
It will be seen that this last statement in Mr. Todd’s letter fixes the 
date of his collections. The drawing that accompanied the letter is 
remarkably accurate, considering that it was made twenty-four years 
after the collections were made, and eleven years since he had seen 
the place. It also contained directions how to go to find the place 
without danger of mistake. Professor Diller received this letter 
while in the field at Myrtle Point. : 
Armed with this document, Mr. Storrs, very soon after its arrival, 
revisited the Buck Mountain region. He had no difficulty in finding 
and identifying Mr. Todd’s locality, and he collected quite a number 
of plants, chiefly ferns, from it. He also revisited his other localities 
on Olalla Creek and made further collections there, extending the range 
considerably. These specimens were subjected to a critical preliminary 
examination by both Professor Fontaine and myself. The occurrence 
of a number of ferns associated with the cycadean forms in the Olalla 
Creek beds and having much the same facies as those from Todd 
Gulch on the mountain began to shake the hitherto somewhat settled 
opinion that the two beds must be of different age, the latter never 
having been suspected of being Jurassic. After further study of the 
collections from both localities, Professor Fontaine, in a letter dated 
January 7, 1898, says: 
I have been including Todd’sspecimen and the other Oregon plants in the descrip- 
tion of the Shasta flora, because they were sent as occurring in that group. There is, 
