1890.] Geology and Paleontology. 563 
“ I gladly testify to the indefatigable zeal with which Mr White pur- 
sued his investigations against the greatest difficulties and discourage- 
ments. It required much careful thought and labor to ascertain in 
what particular manner the plants were preserved ; but after this had 
been fully settled he was very successful in finding then, although they 
were not abundant; and he persisted until his collection amounted to 
five barrels of very excellent material, which is being elaborated at the 
National Museum. ”’ 
F. J. H. MerRILL said: “It is seldom that an opportunity is 
afforded for determining the true stratigraphy of the Gay Head section. 
The speaker visited it in 1884, and concluded as a result of his examina- 
tion that the beds were extensively repeated by faulting ; but on visit- 
ing the locality in 1887, with Professor N. S. Shaler, he found the as- 
pect of the section so much altered by landslides that he was 
unable to show the evidence upon which he had based his conclusion. 
Subsequent exposures have again revealed the truth as reported by 
Professor Shaler at this meeting (azze, pp. 443-452). During his first 
visit the writer found a number of clay-ironstone nodules enclosing 
fragmentary leaf-prints, which were considered by Dr. Newberry to be 
of Cretaceous age, but the impressions were poorly preserved and their 
nidus in the section was uncertain, so that no decisive value could be 
attached to them. Although the Cretaceous leaf-prints reported by 
Mr. White were undoubtedly in place, they do not prove the Creta- 
ceous age of the whole Gay Head section. They are from the lower 
half of the series. The greensand beds, which are in the upper half, 
contain Miocene Tertiary fossils, shark teeth of the genera Charcarodon 
and Oxyrhina, bivalve casts, probably of Ze/lina biplicata, Say, and 
fragments of crustaceans. This greensand deposit is apparently 
secondary, having been derived from some pre-existing bed and re- 
deposited ‘under conditions of disturbance and violence abnormal to 
greensand beds. The crustacean fragments in particular have been 
much rolled and wave-worn. On this evidence we may conclude that 
the greensand beds were laid down not earlier than the close of the 
. Miocene. ; 
« The opinion of the writer that the Gay Head strata were post-Plio- 
cene was chiefly based on the evidence of a stratum of post-Pliocene 
sand, which is the uppermost member throughout the section, being 
repeated frequently by faults at one point containing fragments of 
Venus mercenaria and other Quaternary shells. As this bed is ap- 
parently comformable to those beneath it, the writer concluded that a 
considerable portion of the Gay Head series, if not the whole of it, 
