liuleti and 3Iisrnles in Classipcation. — M<trcou. 123 
trial globe, at the same moment; a most erroneous principle, 
contrary to the teaching of Brongniart: and with no otlier 
base than a supposition and a hypothesis, contrary to well au- 
thenticated facts of the present fauna — simply a "speculative 
palaeontology" according to R. Owen's right expression. 
The opposition to the observations and Tertiary references 
of Drs. Randall, Trask and Mr. Remond de Corbineau took 
the form of an opposition absolute and uncompromising. The 
only reason given by the opponents being that it is impossible 
that BaculUes and Ammonites could exist in the California 
region of the earth when such cephalopods did not exist any 
longer in Europe; they have no right to be there, and conse- 
quently when you find them you can say, with an absolute 
confidence, that the strata in which they lie belong to the 
Cretaceous system and are not Tertiary. With such misrules 
the publications of Messrs. Newberry, Gabb, and afterward of 
Dr. C. A. White, have created confusion, which has prevented 
the progress of geology on the whole Pacific coast, and not- 
withstanding the opposition made by Mr. 'I\ A. Conrad and 
myself, we are still confronted by an erroneous classification. 
However, the mathematical rulers have abated some of their 
opposition, accepting at last that the Tejon group is not Cre- 
taceous, but Tertiar3^ and even admitting that the Martinez 
group also is not Cretaceous, retaining onl}'^ the Chico group 
in the Cretaceous system. 
Lately Mr. J. S. Diller in a paper, "Cretaceous and early 
Tertiary of Northern California and Oregon" {Ball. Geol. Soc. 
America^ vol. 4, pp. 205-224, Rochester, 1893), has not only 
detached the Chico from the Tejon and accepted the Tejon as 
Tertiary, but he tries to create a "Shasta-Chico series," the 
Shasta being formed of two great divisions of true Cretaceous 
strata called "Horsetown and Knoxville beds." He insists on 
the passage and connection between the upper part of the 
Shasta and the lower part of the Chico. First, Mr. Diller 
does not prove that the series called by him Chico beds is 
really the original group of Chico creek of Butte county. And 
second, he calls Chico a series called by others "Wallala beds," 
from a series of strata exposed at Wallala, Mendocino county, 
California, and which are not proved to be truly identical 
with the Chico group as originally created by Randall and 
Trask. The California Geological Survey, directed from 1860 
