THE WEST INDIAN FAUNA. 19 
in the West Indian miocene is not more anomalous than is the 
oceurrence in the deep water of the West Indian seas of hving 
species which perhaps characterized the Sicilian tertiaries. The 
beds, forming raised terraces such as those of the Barbados and 
of other islands of the Caribbean, though they seem to be the 
direct continuation of the coral beds now growing, yet also give 
us the measure of the physical changes which must have taken 
place in the West Indian regions about the end of the creta- 
ceous, at the time of the separation of the Pacific Ocean and 
the Caribbean Sea. 
The absence of single simple species of corals in the Caribbean 
district within the reef area distinguishes this fauna at once 
from that of the reef regions of the Pacific and Indian oceans, 
in which are found in shoal or moderately shoal water several 
species of simple corals, like Flabellum, many Fungide, and 
others, besides genera and families not represented in the West 
Indies. Yet the bathymetrical distribution of the West Indian 
species gives us an approximate idea of the depths at which 
some of the fossiliferous strata of the eretaceous and tertiaries 
containing corals were probably deposited. 
Pourtalés, who thoroughly studied the deep-sea corals of 
Florida, was of the opinion that some of the miocene, pliocene, 
and pleistocene strata of Messina, of which the fossils have been 
so carefully described by Seguenza, were deposited in a depth 
averaging 450 fathoms, and ranging from about 200 to 700 
fathoms. In the neighborhood of Vienna we may trace from 
Reuss's monographs the fluctuations of depth which have taken 
place between the deposition of the different strata. The mio- 
cene beds, in which there are numerous astreans associated 
with Porites, are shoal-water deposits; while the strata contain- 
ing Turbinolide, Oculinide, and Eupsammide were formed in 
deep water. 
The West Indian tertiary corals are not sufficiently known to 
permit us to reconstruct from them alone the past history of the 
ancient Caribbean seas. Duncan observed that, on some islands, 
such as Antigua and Trinidad, only reef species flourished. This 
shows conclusively that in other places there must be deep-sea 
deposits of the tertiary period which have not yet been brought 
