BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
The studies of the island made by the official surveyors were compre- 
hensive and began at least as early as 1859. The official report? is the 
present standard of reference. 
The observations and material of the Jamaican survey have also been 
the bases of several independent papers on the geology of tho island, by 
5. P. Woodward, Moore, Wall, Duncan, and others, which have appeared 
in the English serials, and which will be frequently cited later on. 
Many individuals who have not personally observed the geology of 
the island have made paleontologic studies of material collected by the 
survey and others, and announced important conclusions. Among these 
may be mentioned Moore, S. P. Woodward, Duncan, Gabb, W. J. L. 
Guppy, Dall, Etheridge, T. Rupert Jones, and Jukes-Browne. So far as 
minute study and interpretations are concerned, the petrography and 
physical geography of the island have received little or no attention. 
The writings of the authors mentioned have been valuable aids in the 
preparation of this book. In perusing this literature the reader is con- 
stantly impressed with the fact that these researches failed to solve 
the essential problems of the succession and age of the strata ; this fact 
impaired the value of all subsequent deductions, and fundamental mis- 
takes were made which have had wide bearing on the interpretation of 
Antillean history. The literature of no other region, especially that 
relating to paleontology, presents so many erroneous conclusions, To 
avoid constant corrections of these mistakes, it is best to point them out 
at the beginning. It is but fair to state that this unfortunate strati- 
graphic confusion was not the result of incompetence, but was due to 
an act of Providence. Mr. Lucas Barrett, the Scientific Director of the 
Offieial Survey, who alone knew the combined results of its several 
workers, and was able to correlate them, was drowned in a diving bell 
while carrying on his studies.  Conflieting endeavors to make post- 
humous interpretations of his opinions were the sources of the subse- 
quent erroneous conclusions. 
The official report is a peculiar and unfinished composite, Barrett’s 
death having occurred before its publication. The introduction of two 
1 Entitled “Reports on the Geology of Jamaica, or Part II. of the West Indian 
Survey," by James G. Sawkins, with contributions by G. P. Wall, Lucas Barrett, 
Arthur Lennox, and C. D. Brown, and an Appendix by Robert Etheridge, Paleon- 
tologist of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, printed for Her Majesty's Sta- 
tionery Office, 1869, 339 pages, with Maps and Plates. This work and its parts will 
be frequently referred to in this paper as the Jamaican Reports. 
2 December, 1802. See Obituary Notice in the Geologist, Vol. IV. pp. 60-62, 
1863. 
