Tin: NAUTILUS. 121> 



the Virginia Miocene, while anotlier might reasonably be regaided 

 as genuine Pliocene, and the stratigraphical equivalent in ISouth 

 Carolina of the Caloosahatchie beds of Florida. 



"These views having been communicated to Mr. Joseph Willcox, 

 of Philadelphia, that gentleman, with the assistance of Mr. Chas. W. 

 Johnson, Assistant Curator of the museum of the Wagner Free Insti- 

 tute of Science, undertook to contribute to the solution of this inter- 

 esting problem. In the autumn of 1891 Mr. Johnson, under the 

 direction of Mr. Willcox, after conferring with the writer, under- 

 took the search for genuine Pliocene beds in South Carolina. It 

 was thought that the search would be most likely to be successful on 

 the Waccamaw River and vicinity, a majority of Tuomey's really 

 Pliocene species having come from that region, while the seaward 

 position of it relative to known Miocene of the State enhanced this 

 probability." 



The sections obtained by j\ir. Johnson during his investigations, 

 and the collections obtained, enable Dr. Dall to "assert with confi- 

 dence that — 1, the presence of genuine Pliocene beds has been 

 established in both the Carolinas ; 2, the Pliocene of Tuoraey and 

 Holmes has been shown to be a confusion of species belonging to at 

 least two horizons ; and 3, that the classifications based upon the 

 supposed characteristics of this non-existent fauna may now be con- 

 signed to oblivion, or at least removed from the geologic pathway 

 in which they have been so long a stumbling-block. That their 

 biological anomalies enabled the writer practically to predict this 

 result is satisfactory testimony to the value of paleontology in geo- 

 logical work — a value which some modern writers have too hastily 

 called in question." 



The general conclusions reached upon the conditions from the 

 close of the eocene to the present time are of such general interest 

 that we cannot forbear quoting them in full : 



" The close of the Eocene was marked by a movement in elevation which raist-d 

 Central Florida as an island above the level of the sea, separated by a wide strai- 

 from the continental shore-line of Georgia. At the same time a change of condi- 

 tions took place by which the character of the fauna was subjected to a notable 

 alteration. Nianmulites and Orbitoides, genera which had formed until then most 

 conspicuous members of the fauna, together with other foraminifera of smaller 

 size, disappeared entirely, with numerous molluscan genera, and were replaced by 

 others, notably Orbitolites. The fauna was a subtropical assemblage similar to 

 that of the Central Antilles, and this continued for a time to be its character- 

 Orogenic changes elsewhere intervened, and, probably by modifying the course of 



