120 bulletin: museum of compaeative zoology. 



position and in species from the Orbitoidal horizons previously men- 

 tioned by Barrett, Woodward, Duncan, and Wall, and Jones himself.^ 

 In the same Report ^ Jones and Farker described a large foraminiferal 

 fauna dredged from the ocean off Jamaica by Barrett, which consisted 

 of recent species almost identical with those of the Pteropod marls. 

 Neither of these collections contained Orbitoides, Nummulites, or any 

 of the more ancient forms of Foraminifera mentioned in the previous lit- 

 erature. In 1867 Guppy tabulated a few species of Foraminifera from 

 the Pteropod marls above referred to and the Orbitoides and Num- 

 mulinse together, and cites them all as coming from ''the Upper 

 Miocene of Jamaica." * In 1874 he again tabulated all the Forami- 

 nifera from the Pteropod marls and recent dredgings in one group with 

 those from the Orbitoidal and Nummulitic horizons, as coming from 

 the Miocene of Jamaica.* 



Finally, after successively placing the Orbitoidal and Nummulitic 

 horizons in the Lower Tertiary, the Upper Miocene, and the Miocene 

 respectively, besides mixing them with forms which are definitely 

 known to come from entirely distinct horizons, Guppy in 1892 ad- 

 mitted ^ that the San Fernando (Naparima) Orbitoidal and Nummulitic 

 beds of I'rinidad which he originally considered Miocene were probably 

 of Eocene age. Inasmuch as all his references of the Orbitoides beds 

 of Jamaica to the Miocene were based upon their supposed resemblance 

 to these Trinidad beds, this last conclusion clearly cancels his many 

 previous references of the Orbitoidal limestones of the West Indies to 

 the Miocene age. 



Fossil Orbitoides were first reported by Barrett in 1860,^ from the 

 limestones included in our Blue Mountain Series, and these fossils were 

 stated by him to be "of Cretaceous age in Jamaica."' Specimens 

 from his collections were sent to England, where they were studied and 

 commented upon by Woodward, T. Rupert Jones, Duncan and Wall, 

 and others.® 



1 Jones and Parker, British Association Report, 1863, p. 80. 



2 Ibid., p. 105. 



8 Proc. Sci. Association of Trinidad, December, 1867, p. 167. 



* Geological Magazine, London, 1874, p. 21. 



6 Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. London, Vol. XLVIII. p. 520. 



^ In a report referred to by the Governor of Jamaica, in the first message of 

 February 7, 18G0, printed in Jamaican Reports, 1869, p. 76, he says that Orbitoides 

 are Cretaceous in Jamaica. 



' Jamaican Reports, p. 76. 



8 See references following. 



