324 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



JULY, 



of subserviency to the National Library. This change, it must not 

 be forgotten, was mainly due to the continued agitation of Sir R. 

 Owen, and a general alteration in the museum system of the country 

 cannot be expected until the provincial curators strive for it. Hitherto 

 there has been little united action among museum authorities ; the 

 foundation of the Museums Association, however, is a step in the 

 right direction, and if this but establish a stronger esprit de corps 

 among curators and stimulate them to use present opportunities 

 more efficiently, it cannot but lead to the museums being placed on a 

 sounder basis in the future. 



The Deep-Sea Deposits of the West Indies. 



Ever since the return of the " Challenger " Expedition first gave us 

 a clear idea of the nature and distribution of the deep-sea deposits, 

 no argument seems to have told so strongly for the theory of the per- 

 manence of oceans and continents than the asserted entire absence of 

 deep-sea deposits among the marine sediments that have been 

 raised above the sea. Various objections have been at times raised 

 to this argument, but a first adequate reply to it has now been made 

 by the publication of detailed descriptions of beds in Barbados which 

 are claimed as of truly deep-sea origin by Haeckel, Jukes-Browne^ 

 and Harrison. Haeckel, in his "Challenger" Report on the 

 Radiolaria, remarked that the Radiolaria of these deposits resembled 

 those of the deepest areas of the Pacific. Jukes-Browne and Harri- 

 son, from a geological examination of the beds, maintained in letters 

 to Nature that they were identical with deep-sea oozes, while the 

 same conclusions were urged by Gregory on the evidence of an 

 Echinoid having abyssal affinities obtained from the radiolarian 

 deposits. The last number of the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. now contains 

 two more papers bearing on the same subject. The principal of 

 these is a detailed description by Messrs. Jukes-Browne and Harrison 

 of the beds, giving an elaborate account of their structure, chemical, 

 microscopical, and lithological ; it is claimed in the paper that the 

 extensive series of rocks comprised in the " Oceanic Deposits " of 

 that island afford a complete parallel to the oozes of the present ocean 

 floors : they include representatives of ordinary chalky earths, of 

 radiolarian and diatomaceous oozes, and red clays. The lithological 

 evidence shows that these are identical with modern deep-sea 

 deposits, while the evidence of all the fossils known, including 

 radiolaria as affirmed by Haeckel, of the Foraminifera as affirmed by 

 Brady, and of the one echinoid as interpreted by Gregory, is in full 

 agreement with this view. As these deep-sea beds are there inter- 

 bedded between shallow water sandstones, and coral rocks, it affords 

 evidence of a complete interchange of continental and oceanic condi- 

 tions in late Tertiary times. Moreover, these beds do not only occur 

 at Barbados ; a pteropod marl indicates a fairly deep-water conditioa 



