100 D. White — Cretaceous Plants from Martha? s Vineyard. 



i 





p 



n« 



tions. Those found in the thicker lignites seldo 

 anything determinable, a large portion of the material con- 

 sisting of woody debris more or less pyritized. They do not 

 show such erosion or abrasion as would be expected had they 

 been transported. Pyritic nodules are still forming in many of 

 the strata. Both at Gay Head and at Nashaquitsa, in the 

 carbonaceous clays, nodules were observed by Professor Ward, 

 who made a review of the ground with me, and myself ap- 

 parently in process of formation, the margins and outer layers 

 presenting all the stages of transition from the center of the 

 concretion to the general matrix of somewhat sandy carbo- 

 naceous clay, which composed the strata. The planes of the 

 nodules are parallel to those of the stratification. We also 

 observed, especially at the latter locality, some cases in which 

 the leaves lay partly within the hard part of the concretion, 

 extending through the intermediate transition material. The 

 plants found in the clays themselves were most difficult to 

 handle and extremely perishable so that none could be pre- 

 served ; but such comparisons of those that were determinable 

 as could be made on the spot pointed to the identity of the 

 species. Many of the nuts of the Eucalyptus and other fruits, 

 with fragments of stems of various plants were found in the 

 limonifcic matrix of the ferruginous conglomerate. This ma- 

 trix can hardly be regarded as transported. 



Similar plant bearing nodules have been reported by Profes- 

 sor N. L. Britton from the Amboy Clays on Staten Island, and 

 along the Raritan River in New Jersey.* The extension of 

 these New Jersey Cretaceous Clays to the eastward, first 

 pointed out by Mather, is now generally accepted,f Glen Cove 

 on the northern shore being the farthest point yet determined. 



If the Vineyard Series does not represent a farther continu- 

 ation of this Cretaceous, I anticipate that it will be found to 

 have been derived in part from such an extension to the south- 

 ward of New England. 



Against the evidence of the Tertiary elements in the fauna 

 at Gay Head, as that evidence is understood, the presence of a 

 Cretaceous flora cannot be said to furnish conclusive proof as 

 to the age of the Vineyard Series. The present paper is but 

 preliminary. There is need of further and more thorough 

 work in all branches of the paleontology of this series before 

 we shall be able to know its age, whether a large part of the 



; I 





* Trans. N". Y. Acad. Sci , vol. viii, No. 7, 8, 1889, pp. 1/77-181. 



f W. W. Mather: Rept. 1st Dist. N. Y., 1838, pp. 136, 137; Rept. 1843, pp. 272- 

 742. Hitchcock and Blake: (Jeol. MapU. S., in the 9th Census, vol. iii. J. D. Dana: 

 this Journal, III, vol. vi, pp. 04-66, 305. C. H. Hitchcock: Proc. A. A. A. S. r 

 vol. xxii, pp. 131, 132. Britton: Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. ii, pp. 161-182. 

 Trans. N. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. i. pp. 56-58; Trans, vol. iii, pp. 30, 31. F. J. H.. 

 Merrill: Ann. X. Y. Acad. Sci., vol. iii, pp. 341-364, pi. xxvii, xxviii. 



