YAKUTAT FOSSILS 
I27 
er’s identification of the Triassic Monotis salinaria 
among fossils collected by Penart from the eastern point 
of the peninsula at Cold Bay, Alaska. Also by the fossils 
collected on the southern side of the peninsula of Katmai 
and near the bay, reported on by Grewingk in 1850. 1 
These fossils were from two horizons, one with Ammo¬ 
nites wosnessenskHy A. biplex y and Belemnites paxil - 
losus ?, the other containing a Unio that was somewhat 
doubtfully identified with U. liassinus . 
The fossils studied and described on the following pages 
are referred to twelve genera and eighteen species. 
Thirteen of the species and seven of the genera are re¬ 
garded as new, and all of the species, save the tubicolous 
worm and the pelecypod, are of that difficult and usually 
very unsatisfactory class commonly called ‘ fucoids.’ 
Still, since both the worm tubes and the bivalves belong 
to undescribed genera, we are obliged to rely chiefly upon 
the evidence afforded by these supposed marine plants. 
We are well aware that paleontologists are of two 
minds concerning the nature and origin of the majority 
of the fucoids, but we have not the time, nor is this the 
proper place, to discuss the questions. Still we may say 
in passing that we believe many of them are really marine 
plants, and that the most of the others are more than mere 
trails or burrows or water marks. Some of them, again, 
are almost certainly of the nature of sponges. It is to be 
understood, however, that when we speak of them as 
marine plants it is not because we believe they are, as a 
whole, of that nature, but only to obviate the frequent 
qualification of the words flora and plant by either a ques¬ 
tion mark or the word ‘ supposed.’ 
Following the Cambrian, in which the impressions 
1 Beitrag zur Kenntniss der orographischen und geognostischen Beschaffen- 
heit der Nord-West-Kuste Amerikas mit den anliegenden Inseln, von C. Gre¬ 
wingk: Verhandl. Russ. k. mineral. Gesell. zu St. Petersburg, Jahrg. 1848-1849, 
pp. 121, 344-347, published in 1850. 
