TRANSACTIONS OF WAGNER 

 1544 



TERTIARY FAUNA OF FLORIDA 



those localities these belated forms appear under their generic names only 

 It may be mentioned here that since Part II. was printed a revision of the small 

 and difiScult group of Pyraniidellidcc. including Turbonilla, Odostomia, and 

 other forms, has been brought nearl)' to conclusion by my assistant in the 

 United States National Museum, Mr. Paul Bartsch, and in making up these 

 lists his study of the fossil species (which prove to be much more numerous 

 than was supposed when Part II. was written) has been utilized to amplify 

 and correct the portions of the lists referring to that group of mollusks. 



Special acknowledgment should be made of the work of Mr. Willcox, who 

 has persevered in exploring most inaccessible corners of the peninsula. To 

 him is due the original discovery of the nummulitic beds described by Pro- 

 fessor Heilprin. To him also we must ascribe the researches on the western 

 border of the Everglades, the first geological work ever done there, one very 

 interesting discovery being that of the crystalline limerock now forming at 

 the mouths of streams there, by the precipitation from solution, in flocculent 

 form, of the lime dissolved in the fresh water, and which is thrown down by 

 contact with the salt water where the two come together. The rock contains 

 hardly any fossils, and the faces of the crystals are sometimes an inch or more 

 in length. 



The mapping out of the distribution of the diiiferent geological horizons 

 from many isolated observations, a good number of which were by Mr. Will- 

 cox himself, as shown on the map in Part II., taken into consideration with 

 the observations of Shaler and others on the east coast, indicated that the 

 peninsula of Florida has experienced a tilting by which the eastern margin 

 has been elevated between twenty and thirty feet, while the western coast has 

 been depressed about the same amount. This tilting is supposed to have taken 

 place since the Pliocene. To the data of 1891, upon which the above generali- 

 zation was based, Mr. Willcox has lately added observations which still further 

 emphasize the fact. He finds that, off the streams falling into the Gulf of 

 Mexico from the peninsula in the relatively shallow waters over the submerged 

 plateau to the west, channels cut in the limestone may be traced for some dis- 

 tance. As these channels, too small to niake any marked feature on the usual 

 hydrographic chart, could not have been cut since the sea has covered the 

 plateau, the inference is obvious that they were cut before the tilting of the 

 peninsula, when the limestone was above the level of the sea. 



Dr. J. W. Spencer has propounded some very startling hypotheses, in- 

 volving the elevation of some of the Antilles and Florida many thousand feet 

 and their submergence within a comparatively recent period of geological time. 



