44 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
The Dolomites. — A rock of an extremely compact nature and homoge- 
neous in texture. Generally it is white or yellowish brown in color. It 
is apparently non-fossiliferous. It weathers to that bluish color on the 
escarpment faces so admirably seen in many Silurian Jimestones. The 
lilliputian mountain-range structure is well exemplified on weathered 
surfaces. — Specific gravity, 2.71. 
The Shelly Limestone of the Main Island. — In patches it is white in 
color, but generally preserves a tint varying from light yellow to rich 
brown or red. In the softer sandy beds there is no fracture, as the rock 
crumbles beneath the finger, but in the sparely fossiliferous beds the 
fracture is flat. This freestone exhibits a wonderful evenness of texture, 
consisting of small calcareous sand particles compacted into solid rock. 
In other beds, again, although area for area there is a general uniformity 
of appearance, still in any small individual block there are vast deviations 
from any common standard of homogeneity that may be set up. Con- 
cretions occur which, when struck with the hammer, emit sparks, and 
are exceedingly difficult to break, while round them may be clustered 
roulettes of foramens lying in loosely cemented sand. These petri- 
factions have conchoidal fractures, and are exceedingly compact and 
minute in structure. A cliff face may present the curious effect of a 
soft exposure, dotted over with hard sub-cylindrical protuberances stand- 
ing out five or six inches from the vertical face. All the beds are 
extremely porous. <A small patch of coral reef has been sandwiched 
in between a bed of greasy clay and a fine-grained limestone. From 
a short distance the cliffs with their uniform and persistent line’ of 
stratification, their warm brown and yellow tints, and their ‘‘rock- 
shelter”? development, have striking similarity to some of the Triassic 
arenaceous sandstones of the Sydney district, but the age of the Fiji 
rocks is of course very different, being probably Tertiary. 
What has just been said concerning the Thuvu-Singatoka area is 
true also for the caleareous beds near Suva. MHere also the rock, 
considered in belts, is fairly homogeneous. 
Calcareous Rock and Coral Rock passing into Soapstone. — On the west 
side of Suva harbor beds occur that pass gradually from soapstone to a 
sandy limestone rock. There is no sharp line of demarcation. The one 
shades insensibly into the other. Exteriorly it often presents a rough 
and hard appearance, but breaks down under the hammer into a sandy 
clay rock. At various times large serrated Carcharadon teeth, carapaces 
and plastra of turtles have been unearthed from the Suva stone. The 
rock is rarely cavernous and contains few fossils. 
