296 i?. T. Hill — Texas Section of American Cretaceous. 



tinuit}'' of this fauna from New Jersey to the Rocky Mountain 

 region : and I believe that both faunally and stratigraphically, 

 this Cretaceous, at the foot of the highlands, is the direct geo- 

 graphic and geologic continuation of the Upper Cretaceous of 

 the United States in general, and. of the Gulf States region in 

 particular, including the so-called " Rotten limestone," " Ripley," 

 and Tombigbee Sand groups of Hilgard and the "Fox Hill," 

 the Fort Pierre, and perhaps the upper Fort Benton groups of 

 Meek and Hayden. This group of strata taken as a whole, 

 from New Jersey to British Columbia, is the upper division of 

 the American Cretaceous, and, as has been so frequently ex- 

 pressed bv Yanuxem, Lyell, Pictet, Meek, and others, is the 

 representative of the Upper or White Chalk of Europe. 



Middle Division of the Texas Cretaceous. 



The middle division of this Austin section (B) consists of 

 argillaceous shales and a few thin bands of limestones and is 

 but a fragment of the same formation more fully developed 

 northward. Careful investigations have not been made to show 

 the conformity with the overlying group, but faunally and 

 lithologically there is no transition between them in the Austin 

 region. Dr. B. F. Shumard, without having recognized their 

 identity, gave these shales two positions in the composite sec- 

 tionf which be made up of his brother's, Dr. Riddell's and his 

 own observations in widely separated portions of the State. 

 The first of these was at the base of and included in his Austin 

 limestone, as he had noticed them at Austin, and the other was 

 the "fish beds" which, upon his brother's representations with 

 the marly clay or Red River group, he erroneously placed at 

 the base of his section.^: There is no record that Dr. B. 

 F. Shumard, ever visited the Denison region himself and 

 this duplication and misplacement of the various members of 

 his section is due to this fact. 



I have traced the continuity and identity of these shales with 

 the Eagle Ford horizons of my section, and have seen them 

 resting by most perfect contacts upon the top of the Lower 



*Sir Charles Lyell expressed the opinion that the fossils of the New Jersey 

 Cretaceous beds of which this division is the equivalent, on the whole agree most 

 nearly with those of the upper European series from the Maestrich beds to the 

 Gault inclusive. In his Cours Elementaire de Paleontologie, Alcide d'Orbigny 

 refers the New Jersey beds as well as those of Nebraska (Upper Missouri), 

 Arkansas, Texas (Roemer's classification), and Alabama, all to his Senonian, the 

 equivalent of the White Chalk and Maestricht beds of the old world. 



Pictet, in his Traite de Paleontologie, also refers most if not all of the New 

 Jersey Cretaceous fossils to the era of the White Chalk of Europe. See Creta- 

 ceous Paleontology, Meek. pp. xliii-xlvii. 



f Trans. St. Louis Acad. Science, vol. i, 1860. 



% I have explained the error in a review of Dr. G. G. Shumard's Red river 

 observations. See this Journal, Jan. 1887. 



