456 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 6, 



of miles to the west of the Isthmus of Panama, and that the Corals 

 of the Atlantic are few and far between ; yet the existing Coral- 

 provinces are all represented in the Miocene beds now under con- 

 sideration. 



The genus Flabellum has no species in the Caribbean £ea, but 

 there are some in the San-Domingan Miocene ; they abound in the 

 Australian, South, and China Seas as recent forms, and a fossil 

 species has been discovered in the Galapagos Islands ; it was named 

 by Milne-Edwards F. Galapagense, and determined by him to be 

 derived from a Miocene bed. This fossil has a resemblance to a 

 new form from the San-Domingan shale ; moreover the great Mont~ 

 livaltia of the Jamaican Miocene is found at Travancore. This 

 carries the subject of a former connexion between the Central 

 American Sea and the Pacific Ocean, during the life of the Miocene 

 Corals, a step further ; and the consideration of the extent of the 

 Newer Parian series, of the relation of the Tertiary "formations of 

 the Isthmus to the central mountain-chain, and of the elevation and 

 magnitude of the Miocene strata in the Antilles, strengthens the 

 hypothesis that the Corals of the San-Domingan and Antiguan beds 

 were washed by the same sea which nourished the progenitors of the 

 present Pacific forms. 



Nothing can be more satisfactory than the determination of the 

 alliances between the San-Domingan and Antiguan fossil Corals and 

 those characteristic of the Faluns and of the Viennese, Bordeaux, 

 Dax, Saucats, and Turin Miocene. 



The affinity between the Corals of the European Miocene and the 

 Pacific recent forms is as decided as that noticed now for the first 

 time between them and those of the Antilles Miocene. 



Doubtless further researches will discover more species common to 

 the European and American Miocene than have yet been described, 

 and perhaps some genera also ; but, from the study of the forms 

 now under consideration, it is evident that a greater facility for 

 Coral-migration between the two sides of the Atlantic existed for- 

 merly than is now the case. 



The researches of Prof. E. Eorbes and Mr. Godwin- Austen have 

 led to the belief that, during the Mid-tertiary period, Europe was 

 very much in the condition of the present Pacific Archipelago ; 

 Mr. Darwin concurs in this view, and it is reasonable to affirm the 

 prolongation of the maze of islands across the Atlantic. Prof. Heer 

 accounts for the specific identity of European and San Domingan 

 Miocene Plants by a great continent intervening ; but such masses 

 of land are antagonistic to coral-growth, by the production of rivers 

 of great size ; moreover, there are positive proofs of old Coral-reefs 

 between San-Domingo and the Atlantic. . A series of islands, formed 

 very much like the Antilles, with Coral-reefs around them, extend- 

 ing from the Mid-pacific across to Europe, would remove Heer's 

 difficulty, and account for the relation between the Miocene Corals 

 of the Old and New World and those of the Galapagos and East 

 Indian raised beds, as well as the relation between the former and 

 the recent species of the great seas to the west of America. 



