Biographical Notice 



fossils determining the Jurassic age of 

 the gold-bearing slates of California. 

 There was at the time a controversy- 

 over the question of "priority" in 

 this settlement of a scientific question. 

 Prof. W. P. Blake had undoubtedly 

 found paleontological evidence tend- 

 ing to the same conclusion. After 

 a laborious study of the contem- 

 poraneous documents, I am led to 

 believe that the discovery in place, 

 in 1863, of Jurassic and Triassic 

 fossils in the Genesee Valley, in 

 Plumas County, was the earliest well- 

 authenticated and decisive one, and 

 that the credit of this discovery 

 belongs to Prof. Brewer, though it 

 was, in Whitney's subsequent official 

 reports, attributed to him and his 

 assistant King jointly. But it was 

 not regarded as decisive by Whitney, 

 because it did not include the observa- 

 tion of actual gold-bearing veins in 

 the same rock. The Mariposa dis- 

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