CRETACEOUS PERIOD. 457 



overlaid by arenaceous beds, 80 feet (Nos. 1 and 2). (a.) Caprotina limestone, con- 

 taining Orbitolina Texana, etc., 55 feet; (£>.) Blue marl, 50 feet; (c.) Washita lime- 

 stone, 100 to 120 feet (No. 3). (d.) Austin limestone, 100 to 120 feet (No. 4). (e.) 

 Comanche Peak Group, 300 to 490 feet; (/.) Caprina limestone, 60 feet. 



In the New Jersey Cretaceous, the beds and their relations to those of Nebraska are 

 thus stated by Meek & Hayden, from the observations of G. H. Cook : — 



1. Earlier Cretaceous (V). — No. 1(?) Bluish and gray clays, micaceous sand, 



with fossil wood and Angiospermous leaves: thickness, 130 feet or more. 



2. Later Cretaceous. — Nos. 4 and 5. (a.) Dark clays (130 feet), overlaid by (b.) 



the flrst bed of Green-sand, 50 feet thick. — No. 5. (a.) Sand-beds colored by iron, 

 60 to 70 feet; (6.) second bed of Green-sand, 45 to 50 feet; (c.) yellow lime- 

 stone. The whole thickness has been stated at 400 to 500 feet. 

 In California, the coast ranges, according to Whitney, "are to a large extent made up 

 of Cretaceous rocks, usually somewhat metamorphic, and often highly so." Many of 

 the altered beds are jaspery, and some are serpentine. They occur also on the flanks of 

 the Sierra Nevada, in Northern California. The beds referred to the Cretaceous belong, 

 as shown by Gabb's study of the fossils, to two or three groups: (1) the Shasta Group, 

 or older Cretaceous, which includes beds occurring in mountains west and northwest 

 of Sacramento valley, on Cottonwood Creek, etc. ; also in Mitchell Canon, iiorth side of 

 Mount Diablo: (2) the Clico group, or Middle Cretaceous, the most extensive in Cali- 

 fornia, represented in Shasta and Butte counties, and in the foot hills of the Sierra 

 Nevada as far south as Folsom, and also on the eastern face of the coast ranges border- 

 ing the Sacramento valley ; and including at top the Martinez group on the north flank 

 of Mcunt Diablo ; also in Oregon, at Jacksonville, etc., and on Vancouver's Island, the 

 coal-bearing strata of that island being referred to it. The third group — the Tejon 

 (/roup — occurs about Fort Tejon and Martinez, and from there along the Coast ranges 

 to Marsh's, fifteen miles east of Mount Diablo ; also on the eastern face of the same 

 range, to New Idria, etc., and near Round Valley in Mendocino County, it being the 

 only coal-producing formation in California. 



The reference to the Cretaceous of the whole of the Coal-bearing or "Lignitic" 

 group, of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, is 

 sustained by the occurrence in them of some Cretaceous types of Mollusks and Reptiles, 

 as species of Inoceramus, Anchura, Gyrodes, and Dinosaurs. In each of the territories 

 just mentioned, occur specimens of /. problematlcus, at different levels in the Coal for- 

 mation; near Bear River, Wyoming, a bed is full of good specimens; at Coalville, 

 specimens occur over one of the lowest beds of coal, and another species of Inoceramus 

 in a sandstone thousands of feet higher; and none of the specimens, mostly casts, bear 

 any evidence of transfer from an older formation (Meek). Agajn, Marsh found, over 

 the coal series, six miles from Green River, near Brush Creek, in Utah, a layer full 

 of Ostrea congesta Con., a typical Cretaceous fossil, and above this a crinoid per- 

 haps related to the Cretaceous Marsupites, and also scales of a Beryx, a genus of Cre- 

 taceous fishes; and in shales, below the coal bed, remains of Turtles of Cretaceous types, 

 and teeth " resembling those of a Meyalosaurus." Again, remains of various Dinosaurs 

 have been found in the coal series of Black Butte Station, on Bitter Creek, Wyoming, 

 and in other parts of the Laramie group. 



On the other hand, the Mollusks of the Rocky Mountain coal formation, with the ex- 

 ception of the Inocerami and species of Anchura and Gyrodes, are stated by Meek to be 

 decidely Eocene Tertiary in character; so much so that, if the Inocerami were absent, the 

 Tertiary character would not be doubted. Further, the fossil leaves, which are of many 

 kinds, are, according to Lesquereux, distinctively Eocene, or at least Tertiary, types. 

 But greater weight is given, with reason, to the vertebrate fossils as marks of age than 

 to plants, and hence the weight of evidence would thus be in favor of their Cretaceous 

 rather than Tertiary a^e. 



The beds referred to the Laramie group include the Lignitic series east of the Rocky 

 Mountains in Colorado, the Bitter Creek series of Southern Wyoming, and of adjacent 

 parts in northwestern Colorado, the Evanston coal series and Bear River beds, and their 

 equivalents in Wyoming and Utah, and the Judith River and Fort Union beds of the 



