Clark: The San Lorenzo Series of Middle California 59 



stones above certain strata, which were called the Aturia beds and 

 referred to the Eocene. Later, these Aturia beds were referred by 

 Dall 17 to the Oligocene. 



Up to 1892 practically nothing had been done toward working out 

 faunal zones in the Tertiary. The formations above the Eocene were 

 still classed as either Miocene or Pliocene. Marine deposits of the 

 Oligocene period had not been recognized on the West Coast. The 

 first announcement of the presence of an Oligocene marine fauna on 

 the Pacific Coast was by W. IT. Dall in 1895 in a paper by J. S. 

 Diller entitled "A geological reconnaissance of northwestern Ore- 

 gon." 18 



The following year (1896) marine Oligocene on the West Coast 

 was again referred to by the same author, 19 but no discussion was 

 given in either of these papers as to the reasons for making this deter- 

 mination. 



Professor J. C. Merriam 's paper entitled "Note on two Tertiary 

 faunas from the rocks of the southern coast of Vancouver Island" 

 appeared in 18 9 6. 20 Thirty species were listed from Carmanah Point 

 and twenty-five from the Sooke district, both near the southern end 

 of Vancouver Island. These beds are now considered to be of Oligo- 

 cene age. The following statement concerning- the age of the beds 

 at the former locality was made by Merriam : 



The fauna of the Carmanah Point beds seems, on the whole, to be the same 

 as that of Conrad's Astoria Miocene, excluding, however, the lower portion of 

 the latter series, which has been supposed to be of Eocene age.'- 1 



i" Dall, W. H., The Miocene of Astoria and Coos Bay, Oregon, IT. S. Geol. 

 Surv., Prof, paper no. 59, p. 9, 1909. 



is Dall, W. H., in Diller, J. S., 19th Ann. Eep. U. S. Geol. Surv., pt. 2, pp. 464- 

 469, 1895. Some of the localities in Oregon from which fossils were determined by 

 Dall as of Oligocene age are the Aturia beds at Astoria, already referred to ; on 

 the road to Mist two miles south of Clatakanie; on the North Fork of the Scap- 

 poose, about five miles northwest of the station of the same name at the mouth 

 of Fall Creek; at "Wilson's Bluff on the river three miles above Veronia; Tilla- 

 mook Bay ; at Pittsburg on the Nehalem River. This last locality is one of the 

 most important localities in Oregon of the Lower Oligocene as recognized in this 

 paper. The fossils identified by Dall from this locality are Nucula truncata, 

 Solen parallelus Gabb, Mya praecesa Gould, Neverita saxea? Conrad, besides Leda, 

 Dentalium, Diplodonta, Macoma, Tellina, Callisfa, Mactra, Lunatia, Cylichna, and 

 Molopophorus, of which most of the species were new (op. cit., p. 466). 



It is interesting to note at this point that Dall, in a later publication, described 

 and figured Macrocallista pittsburgensis from this locality; also, Acila shumardi, 

 listing it at that time as Acila decisa Conrad; both of these species were referred 

 to the Tejon Eocene (Trans. Wagner Free Inst. Sci., vol. 3, p. 1253, 1903). 



in Dall, W. H., A table of North American Tertiary horizons correlated with 

 one another and with those of Western Europe, with annotations, 18th Ann. Eep., 

 U. S. Geol. Surv., pt. 2, face page 334, 1896-1897. 



20 Merriam, J. G, Univ. Calif. Publ., Bull. Dept. Geol., vol. 2, pp. 101-108, 

 1896. 



21 Op. cit., p. 104. 



