10 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



near the top of the same.^ Furthermore, in this mixture the erroneously 

 combined group was given the stratigraphic position of the Yellow lime- 

 stones below the White limestones, aad the age position of the Bowden 

 beds. This resulted in making all the White limestone, much of which 

 is pre-Miocene, appear as overlying the Bowden Oligocene. As this 

 error has had far reaching importance in obscuring Antillean geology 

 and paleontology, we give a brief sketch of its origin and history. 



The following section,'^ showing the sequence of the Jamaican forma- 

 tions, was published by Woodward in 1862, seven years before the ap- 

 pearance of the official reports in 1869, as a posthumous interpretation 

 of Barrett's conclusions as he (Woodward) understood them. The 

 names on the right are those to be used by us for the equivalent beds 

 of the section. The sequence of the formations, as given in this sec- 

 tion, corresponds more nearly with their true occurrence than any of 

 the subsequent compilations to be noted. 



Figure 1. Woodward's Interpretation of Barrett's Section of the 

 Jamaican Sequence. 

 Barrett's Section. /equivalent Nomenclature of this Paper. 



6. Pliocene Limestone and Marls, Bowden and other Beds of the Coast 



6. Miocene Limestone, Oceanic Se)'ies. [Series. 



4. Orbitoidal Limestone, Cambridge Beds. 



3. Gray Shales, Richmond Beds. 



2. Cretaceous Limestone and Hippurites, ) „, ,, ^ • o • 

 , „ , ^ , * * i Blue Mountam Series. 



1. rurple Conglomerate. J 



This original section, supposedly b}' Barrett, in addition to giving the 

 position of the Hipptirites limestone, from which Orbitoides and Num- 

 mi'JinjD were reported, gave in its correct place, under the name of Or- 

 bitoidal limestone but without age designation, the beds called Yellow 



* The Bowdon formation, although one of the most important in the Jamaican 

 Bcquoncc, and the one from wliich all of the alleged Miocene fossils of Jamaica 

 have come, seems not to have been clearly defined or understood by these earlier 

 writers, -^ prohahly hocause of their supposed identity with the Yellow limestone. 

 See further details, pages 82-84 of this paper. 



•-' The Geologist, London, 1862, Vol. V. p. 873. 



