MESOZOIC TIME — CRETACEOUS. 857 



nent, were also, for the most part, Cretaceous seas with still wider limits 

 and larger intercommunications. The London-Paris basin, spreading east- 

 ward to Denmark, was one of these partly isolated areas ; it was 800 miles 

 wide from north to south in the Cretaceous period, 400 in the Jurassic, and 

 about 250 in the Tertiary. Southwestern France and the northeastern half 

 of Spain, making the Pyrenean basin, was another, 450 miles broad; Switzer- 

 land and a broad area across Bavaria was another. Italy and the eastern 

 coast region of the Adriatic, with a very broad region in northern Africa, in 

 Egypt and Syria to the eastward, made another, the Mediterranean basin. 

 A great Austro- Russian basin spread beyond the Azof and Black seas to the 

 Caspian, the Caucasus, and farther east over large areas in Persia; and in 

 the iSTeocomian, it is supposed to have extended by the west side of the 

 Urals to the borders of the Arctic Sea. Only parts of the borders of these 

 great areas are at surface Cretaceous, the Tertiary being the overlying 

 formation. 



It is necessary thus to view the Tertiary with the Cretaceous in order to 

 appreciate the fact that Cretaceous Europe, across from the Bay of Biscay 

 and Spain to its eastern border, was mostly a submerged region. The 

 Mediterranean basin, like that of the West India and Gulf basin in America, 

 was the deeper part of the submerged area. The dry land included the 

 regions of Scandinavia with the Baltic provinces in Russia, a western and 

 northern part of Great Britain, and some isolated areas along the western 

 border and over the central portions of the continent. The resemblance to 

 North American distribution consists in the fact that the dry land was 

 most extensive to the north, and that the deepest waters were about the 

 Mediterranean Sea on the south. The contrast consists in the widespread 

 submergence of the continental surface across from east to west, and the 

 absence of any distinctively Atlantic border region. 



In India, there is no evidence of marine Cretaceous beds in the great 

 valley of the Ganges, and only small areas near Pondicherry in the south- 

 eastern part of the Peninsula. They cover a large area in Queensland, north- 

 eastern Australia, and occur in some other parts of that continent. They are 

 found also in New Zealand, where they contain valuable coal-beds; 



In South America, narrow belts of Cretaceous rocks extend, in Venezuela, 

 from Cumana to Pamplona, and from there northward and southward along 

 the Andes, being at an elevation of 9000 to 14,000 feet at the passes of the 

 Portillo and Rio Volcan, and having a height of 20,000 feet. The Upper 

 Cretaceous forms most of the peaks of the eastern Andes, some of the ridges 

 having a height of nearly 19,700 feet. In Peru, latitude 11 -1-° S., near the 

 pass of Antaranga, its height is about 15,750 feet, and in the Province of 

 Huamachuco, the Gault reaches a height of 16,405 feet. In Chile, in the 

 Cordillera of Chilian (36° 18'), the Cenomanian has a height of nearly 

 15,000 feet. The Cretaceous are the oldest of the beds exposed over the 

 most of northern South America, the crystalline rocks (Archaean) excepted 

 (H. Karsten). There is a large area also in the eastern part of Brazil. 



