Geology of Puyet Sound Basin. — Kimball. 305 
ever exposed, is, however, characteristic of an extremely 
unstable surface throughout the period of deposition. Condi- 
tions favorable to vegetable growth obviously unequally 
alternated with subsidence and sedimentation. 
Absence of proof or even indication of particular synchro- 
nous denudation areas within the outer limits of the several 
survivals of the coal series is not without important signifi- 
cance. That the Olympic range was an island and the 
Cascade belt a peninsula in their relation to the coal-forming 
area, as sometimes assumed, the weight of present evidence 
tends to disprove.* 
Important facts, on the other hand, go to show that neither 
the Vancouver range, of which, as considered by Dr. G. M. 
Dawson, the Olympics are the continuation, nor the Coast 
range of British Columbia was re-elevated until at the close of 
the Cretaceous period, nor, indeed, to a considerable altitude 
until a late Pliocene epoch. Since that event partial subsi- 
dence of both ranges has taken place. Though perhaps first 
outlined at the close of the Triassic period, the Vancouver 
range occupies an area which during the Cretaceous was, par- 
tially at least, one of subsidence and sedimentation, thus con- 
stituting a portion of the coal-forming Cretaceous littoral so- 
called, as recognized north of Puget sound. 
"The molluscan fauna" of the Puget group, as illustrated 
in the Newberry collection from the coal developments of 
Cedar and Green rivers, and Flett's creek, "being unique in 
character and composed of types which give little or no defi- 
nite indication as to geological age, is," says Dr. White, 
"comparatively worthless as an aid in correlating the Puget 
group with any other formation."! Yet on the assumed facies 
of this collection rests the further assumption, not only of 
uniform estuarine conditions during the accumulation of the 
coal-bearing series, but also the distinction as commonly 
drawn between the developments of western Washington and 
those of the gulf of Georgia. The only characteristic fossil 
found by Dr. White in the Newberry collection, namely Bacu- 
lites chicoensis, is common to the lower Snoqualmie river and 
♦Compare Bull. U. S. G. S., No. 51, p. 55; No. 83, p. 107, with Trans. 
Roy. Soc. Can., viii, pp. 10, 21. 
tBuU. U. S. G. S.. No. 51, p. 56. 
