340 CRETACEOUS ROCKS. [Ch. XVIX. 



At the base of the system in Alabama, I found dense masses of 

 sningle, perfectly loose and unconsolidated, derived from the waste 

 of palaeozoic (or carboniferous) rocks, a mass in no way distinguish- 

 able, except by its position, from ordinary alluvium, but covered with 

 marls abounding in Inocerami. 



In Texas, according to F. Eomer, the chalk assumes a new litho- 

 logical type, a large portion of it consisting of hard siliceous lime- 

 stone, but the organic remains leave no doubt in regard to its age, 

 the Baculites anceps and 10 other European species occurring there. 

 Fossil plants from New Jersey, and others, obtained from the creta- 

 ceous rocks by Messrs. Meek and Hayden in Nebraska, include, ac- 

 cording to Dr. Newberry, many genera of dicotyledonous angiosperms 

 in the same way as does the flora of Aix-la-Chapelle, above described, 

 p. 335. 



In South America the cretaceous strata have been discovered in 

 Columbia, as at Bogota and elsewhere, containing Ammonites, Ha- 

 mites, Inocerami, and other characteristic shells.* 



In the south of India, also, at Pondicherry, Verdachellum, and 

 Trinconopoly, Messrs. Kaye and Egerton have collected fossils be- 

 longing to the cretaceous system. Taken in connection with those 

 from the United States, they prove, says Prof. E. Forbes, that those 

 powerful causes which stamped a peculiar character on the forms of 

 marine, animal life at this period, exerted their full intensity through 

 the Indian, European, and American seas.f Here, as in North and 

 South America, the cretaceous character can be recognized even 

 where there is no specific identity in the fossils ; and the same may 

 be said of the organic type of those rocks in Europe and India which 

 occur next to the chalk in the ascending and descending ordei% 

 namely, the Eocene and the Oolitic. 



* Proceed, of the Geol. Soc, vol. iv. p. 391. 

 f See Forbes, Quart. Geol. Joura., vol. i. p. 79. 



