1921] Merriam: Palaeontological Research on the Pacific Coast 247 



It was toward the end of the pioneer period of palaeontological 

 investigation that Major Hancock of Los Angeles called to the atten- 

 tion of William Denton of Boston the vertebrate remains in asphalt 

 beds on the Hancock Ranch, now known as the place of occurrence 

 of the Rancho La Brea Pleistocene fauna. Denton gave a good 

 description of the locality, but his reference to the fauna in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History of 1875 seems to 

 have escaped notice of all investigators until after the independent 

 discovery of the significance of these deposits in 1905. 



In the literature of California, Nevada, western Oregon, and 

 Washington, there are sporadic references to occiirrence of fossil ver- 

 tebrates discovered in this field between the first and second periods : 

 such are the mention of a very few mammal remains in the Great 

 Basin Province discussed in King's Report of the Fortieth Parallel 

 Survey in 1878, and the reference to occurrence of cetacean and 

 sirenian remains in the marine deposits of California by Leidy, Cope, 

 and Marsh. 



Following the beginning of palaeontological work at the two uni- 

 versities of California, a study of the marine Triassic reptiles was 

 begun by J. C. Merriam in 1895, culminating in the publication of a 

 monograph on the new order Thalattosauria in 1905 and one on the 

 Triassic Ichthyosauria in 1908, the latter setting forth such evidence 

 on the evolution of the ichthyosaurs as was then available. Work on 

 the John Day faunas by parties from the University of California in 

 1899 and 1900 led to a series of papers including studies of the faunal 

 sequence, discussion of the principal groups, and a summary of the 

 fauna by J. C. Merriam and W. J. Sinclair between 1902 and 1907. 



Mammalian faunas of three important Pleistocene caverns of 

 California, represented in Potter Creek, Samwel, and Hawver caves, 

 were secured and described by Sinclair, E. L. Fui*long, and Merriam 

 between 1902 and 1909. These studies gave for the first time a knowl- 

 edge of the Pleistocene mammals in the higher, partly forested areas 

 of the California region, and opened one of the most fascinating 

 phases of study in the field of mammalian history. 



In 1901 an expedition from the University of California visited 

 the Fossil Lake Pleistocene of eastern Oregon and secured a valuable 

 collection, of which the bird remains have been described by L. H. 

 Miller. 



Previously unknown Tertiary deposits representing the middle 

 Miocene and the Pliocene in northwestern Nevada were explored 



