Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/693

Rh invertebrate fossils have thrown little light on the question, which is essentially whether the great Lignite series of the West is uppermost Cretaceous or lowest Eocene. The evidence of the numerous vertebrate remains is, in my judgment, decisive, and in favor of the former view.

This brings up an important point in paleontology, one to which my attention was drawn several years since, namely: the comparative value of different groups of fossils in marking geological time. In examining the subject with some care, I found that, for this purpose, plants, as their nature indicates, are most unsatisfactory witnesses; that invertebrate animals are much better; and that vertebrates afford the most reliable evidence of climatic and other geological changes. The subdivisons of the latter group, moreover, and in fact all forms of animal life, are of value in this respect, mainly according to the perfection of their organization or zoölogical rank. Fishes, for example, are but slightly affected by changes that would destroy reptiles or birds, and the higher mammals succumb under influences that the lower forms pass through in safety. The more special applications of this general law, and its value in geology, will readily suggest themselves.

The evidence offered by fossil remains is, in the light of this law, conclusive, that the line, if line there be, separating our Cretaceous from the Tertiary, must at present be drawn where the Dinosaurs and other Mesozoic vertebrates disappear, and are replaced by the mammals, henceforth the dominant type.

The Tertiary of Western America comprises the most extensive series of deposits of this age known to geologists, and important breaks in both the rocks and the fossils separate it into three well-marked divisions. These natural divisions are not the exact equivalents of the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene of Europe, although usually so considered, and known by the same names; but, in general, the fauna of each appears to be older than that of its corresponding representative in the other hemisphere; an important fact, not hitherto recognized. This partial resemblance of our extinct faunas to others in regions widely separated, where the formations are doubtless somewhat different in geological age, is precisely what we might expect, if, as was probable, the main migrations took place from this continent. It is better at once to recognize this principle, rather than attempt to bring into exact parallelism formations that were not strictly contemporaneous.

The fresh-water Eocene deposits of our Western Territories, which are in the same region at least two miles in vertical thickness, may be separated into three distinct subdivisions. The lowest of these, resting unconformably on the Cretaceous, has been termed the Vermilion Creek, or Wahsatch, group. It contains a well-marked mammalian