THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
VoL. XXII. NOVEMBER, 1888. No. 268, 
CRETACEOUS FLORAS OF THE NORTHWEST 
TERRITORIES OF CANADA. 
BY WILLIAM DAWSON.: 
GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE FLORAS. 
N my memoir in the First volume of the Transactions of this 
Society, I have given a table of the formations prepared by Dr. 
G. M. Dawson, and have fully stated the geological position of the 
plants at that time described. The new facts above detailed now 
require us to intercalate in our table three distinct plant horizons 
not previously recognized in the western territories of Canada. 
One of these, the Kootanie series, should probably be placed at the 
base of the table as a representative of the Urgonian or Neocomian, 
or, at the very least, should be held as not newer than the Shasta 
group of the United States Geologists, and the Lower Sandstones 
and Shales of the Queen Charlotte Islands. It would seem to cor- 
respond in the character of its fossil plants with the oldest Creta- 
ceous floras recognized in Europe and Asia, and with that of the 
Komé formation in Greenland, as described by Heer. No similar 
flora seems yet to have been distinctly recognized in the United 
States, except, perhaps, that of the beds in Maryland, holding 
cycads, and which were referred many years ago by Tyson to the 
Wealden. 
! This paper states the general conclusions of a memoir, by Sir William 
Dawson, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, which 
will appear with descriptions and illustrations of the new species in the 
Course of next winter. 
