Reviews — Santo Domingo Fossils. 37 



country and made valuable collections of fossils, which he sent to 

 the Geological Society of London, but which have been since 

 transferred to the British Museum. Heneken described the 

 geological features of the region, whilst the molluscan remains were 

 studied by G. B. Sowerby and J. Carrick Moore, and the corals by 

 W. Lonsdale, the combined results forming notable memoirs in the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for 1850 and 1853. 

 Both . Moore and Sowerby recognized that some of the shells 

 exhibited Pacific affinities, although more often a Miocene facies 

 was apparent with resemblances to those found in the deposits of 

 Bordeaux, Touraine, and Malta, as well as to those of similarly aged 

 beds in the more eastern parts of the United States. At a later 

 date R. J. L. Guppy and W. H. Gabb contributed largely to our 

 knowledge of this subject, and supported the Miocene age for the 

 fossiliferous rocks as first enunciated by Heneken and his colleagues. 

 Like Heneken' s collections most of the writer's fossils were obtained 

 from the northern part of the island, in the Yaqui Valley. Among 

 the Tertiary clays and limestones of that district, three well-defined 

 formations, differing in their molluscan faunas, have been determined 

 as the Seonsia Icevigata, the Aphera islacolonis, and the Orthaulax 

 inornatus, the last being the oldest. The first named is recognized 

 as belonging to the Burdigalian stage of the Middle Miocene of 

 Europe, the second is included in the Upper Aquitanian or Lower 

 Miocene, and the third is regarded as Rupeliau or Upper Oligocene. 

 The Gatun beds of Panama, together with the Alum Bluff and Oak 

 Grove deposits of Florida, are said to be synchronous with the 

 Seonsia Imvigata formation, whilst the Bowden beds of Jamaica, 

 with a mixed fauna, are scheduled as belonging to both the Seonsia 

 Icevigata and the Aphera islacolonis formations, the latter also 

 including the Chipola River marls of Florida. The Orthaulax 

 inornatus formation includes the Tampa silex beds of Florida. 

 Further, it is urged that this fossil fauna of the Yaqui Valley is not 

 only most closely allied to that of the Bowden beds of Jamaica, but 

 exhibits affinities with that characterizing deposits in Cumana, 

 Trinidad, and Martinique. 



It will be readily seen from this brief survey of Dr. Maury's book 

 that all the best methods of investigation have been utilized in its 

 preparation. Instead of being satisfied as to the Miocene age of the 

 fossils under which they had hitherto been generally recognized, her 

 employment of the zonal system of collecting, and a careful 

 classification of the numerous molluscan remains obtained, have 

 facilitated the recognition of some important fauna! distinctions, and 

 so enabled the writer to divide these Miocene and Oligocene rocks 

 into certain stages which are in agreement with the European 

 standard of stratigraphy. 



This is a valuable and an authoritative memoir, and will be 

 greatly welcomed by geologists and palseoconchologists alike, as a 

 history of the Tertiary sequence in this and neighbouring parts of 

 the Western Hemisphere, founded upon molluscan evidence. 



R. B. IN". 



