54 TRANSACTIONS OF THE WAGNER FREE 



among which I recognized great numbers of the Orbitoides occurring 

 in the rock-fragments submitted to me by Dr. Smith, and what was 

 of far greater moment, vast quantities of a true nummulite (named 

 Nummulitcs Willcoxi), the first that had hitherto been discovered on the 

 American continent. The nummulitic masses were embedded in, or 

 bordered by, a fringe of a much newer fresh-water limestone, containing 

 the remains of several recent species of non-marine mollusks Vwipara 

 Waltonii, Glandina parallcla, Ampiillaria dcprcssa indicating that there 

 had been a working over of the older formation, and that the specimens 

 obtained were not found /;/ situ. Nevertheless, there could no longer be 

 any doubt as to the existence of a true nummulitic formation in the 

 United States, and the age which it represented in the peninsula of 

 Florida. Other specimens obtained by Mr. Willcox at Wacasassa, in 

 Levy Co., contained the remains of two species of sea-urchin, Euspatangus, 

 Clevei and . Antillarinn, identical with forms occurring in the equivalent 

 (Oligocene) deposits of the island of St. Bartholomew. 



Since the discovery of these nummulitic rocks on the Cheeshowiska 

 River Mr. Willcox has obtained further specimens of the same foraminifer 

 at a locality removed some fifteen miles northeast of the original locality, 

 and in situ ; and I have identified the species in rock fragments sent to 

 me for determination by Prof. A. G. Wetherby, from a well-boring 

 situated five miles S. W. of Gainesville. A second species of the genus 

 (Nummulitcs Florid ens is) has also been described by me from Hernando 

 Co., associated in a rock mass with various other species of Foraminifera, 

 of the genera Heterostegina, Biloculina, Triloculina, etc. 



Concerning the (marine) Tertiary deposits newer than the Oligocene, 

 the only positive indication that we had of their existence in the State 

 prior to 1886, beyond the patch of Miocene above referred to as occur- 

 ring at Rock Spring, was furnished by Dall (Science, VI, p. 82), who, in 

 July, 1885, reported the discovery of RcpJiora quadricostata, a charac- 

 teristic Miocene fossil of the Atlantic border of the United States, in the 

 rock of Tampa Point. Mr. L. C. Johnson about this time also indicated 

 the occurrence of what appeared to be newer Tertiaiy deposits in the 

 northwest of the peninsula, a conclusion at which I had likewise arrived 

 from an examination of a limited collection of fossils obtained from 

 Ballast Point, on Hillsboro Bay, a few miles south of Tampa.* 



During the spring of 1884 the late Prof. W. C. Kerr, of the North 

 Carolina Geological Survey, made a cursory examination of the region 

 about Tampa, the results of which are embodied in a brief paper published 



* Mr. Johnson (Science, May, 1885) does not give the paleontological evidence on 

 which the rock of Hawthorne and Waldo is referred to the Miocene (or later) period ; 

 and I fail to see the full force of the argument which places it newer than the Oligocene, 

 although this may be so. 



