“ Economic Products of Cretaceous Rocks.—Coal is one of the most important products of the rocks of this system. The principal Cretaceous coal-bearing area is in the western interior of N. America, where an enormous amount of coal—mostly lignitic, but in places converted into anthracite—lies in the rocks at the foot of the Rocky Mountains; most of this is of Laramie age. Similar beds occur locally in Montana. ”

“ The earliest of these fossil angiosperms is not in a true sense a primitive form, and no records of such types have yet been discovered. Some of the early forms of the Lower Cretaceous are distinctly similar to modern genera, such as Ficus, Sassafras and Aralia; others bore leaves closely resembling our elm, maple, willow, oak, eucalyptus, &c. Before the close of the period many other representatives of living genera had appeared, beech, walnut, tamarisk, plane, laurel (Laurus) , cinnamon, ivy, ilex, viburnum, buckthorn, breadfruit, oleander and others ”

“ The Fort Pierre beds are oil-bearing at Boulder, Colorado; and the Trinity formation bears asphalt and bitumen. Important clay deposits are worked in the Raritan formation of New Jersey, &c., and pottery clays are found in the Löwenberg district in Germany. The Washita beds yield the well-known hone stone. Great beds of gypsum exist in the Cretaceous rocks of S. America. Near Salzburg a variety of the hippuritic limestone is quarried for marble. Lithographic stone occurs in the Pyrenees. The economic products peculiar to the chalk are mentioned in the article Chalk. ”

“ The marine fauna comprised foraminifera which must have swarmed in the Chalk and some of the limestone seas; their shells have formed great thickness of rock. Common forms are the genera Alveolina, Cristellaria, Rotalia, Textularia, Orbitolina, Globigerina. ”

“ Sandy and shore deposits are common throughout the system in every region. Besides the Weald, there were great lacustrine and terrestrial deposits in N. America (the Potomac, Kootenay, Morrison, Dakota and Laramie formations) as well as in N. Spain, and in parts of Germany, &c. The general distribution of land and sea is indicated in the map.
Earth Movements and Vulcanicity.—During the greater part of the Cretaceous period crustal movements had been small and local in effect, but towards the close a series of great deformative movements was inaugurated and continued into the next period. ”

“ This marine extension made itself felt over the old central plateau of France, the N. of Great Britain, the Spanish peninsula, the Armorican peninsula, and also in the Bavarian Jura and Bohemia; it affected the northern part of Africa and East Africa; in N. America the sea spread over the entire length of the Rocky Mountain region; and in Brazil, eastern Asia and western Australia, Upper Cretaceous deposits are found resting directly upon much older rocks. ”