THEIR DEPOSITS AND DRAINAGE. 647 
From the stratification and horizontality of these deposits, 
I had been fully assured that they were thrown down from 
great bodies of water that filled the spaces separating the 
more elevated portions of the interior basin, and here I had 
evidence that this water was fresh. Since that time a vast 
amount of evidence has accumulated to confirm the general 
view then taken of the changes through which the surface of 
this portion of our continent has passed. From South- 
western Idaho and Eastern Oregon I have now received 
large collections of animal and vegetable fossils of great va- 
riety and interest. Of these the plants have been, for the 
most part, collected by Rev. Thomas Condon, of the Dalles, 
Oregon, who has exposed himself to great hardship and 
danger in his several expeditions to the localities in Eastern 
Oregon, where these fossils are found. The plants obtained 
by Mr. Condon are apparently of Miocene age, forming 
twenty or thirty species, nearly all new and such as repre- 
sent a forest growth as varied and luxuriant as can be now 
found on any portion of our continent. 
The animal remains contained in these fresh-water depos- 
its have come mostly from the banks of Castle Creek, in the 
Owyhee district, Idaho. The specimens I have received 
were sent me by Mr. J. M. Adams, of Ruby City. They 
consist of the bones of the mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, elk 
and other large mammals, of which the species are probably 
in some cases new, in others identical with those obtained 
from the fresh-water Tertiaries of the “Bad Lands” by Dr. 
Hayden. With these mammalian remains are a few bones 
of birds and great numbers of the bones and teeth of fishes. 
These last are cyprinoids allied to Mylopharodon, Miloche- 
ilus, etc., and some of the species attained a length of three 
feet or more. There are also in this collection large num- 
bers of fresh-water shells of the genera Unio, Corbicula, 
Melania and Planorbis.* All these fossils show that at one 
A EE db uin oni uoc tdi uiia 
TE One of the most common is a species of Tiara closely resembling an East Indian one, 
fla th. P" " 1 ahi ntinent 
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