586 PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 20, 



extremely probable. It would also render the palaBontological facts 

 more easy of explanation if it could be shown that the breaking-up 

 and submergence of the Atlantic land began in the west and pro- 

 ceeded towards the east. Prom such a succession of circumstances 

 it would result that, while the European Miocene fauna would be 

 related to the Eastern recent fauna, the relations of the Caribean 

 Miocene fauna would be towards the European Miocene and the 

 Eastern recent faunas, which seems to be in conformity with the 

 facts already set forth, as I shall further endeavour to show in this 

 paper. The affinities with the Eastern fauna are, as might be ex- 

 pected, somewhat less close than with the European Miocene. 



The inferences arrived at from a study of the Asiatic recent and 

 Tertiary faunas gives support to the view that the migration of 

 organized beings was towards the east, and not from the east. Mr. 

 Jenkins, in his paper on Javan fossils, has ably summed up the 

 arguments on this head* ; and it is obvious that if Miocene forms 

 migrated from Europe to the East Indies, where they are in part 

 still living, they could hardly get across the Isthmus of Panama in 

 time to be imbedded in Miocene deposits, unless the latter could be 

 shown to be equivalent in time to the later Tertiaries of Europe 

 (Pliocene), which, considering the great change in the fauna since 

 the deposition of the Caribean Miocene, a change indicated by the 

 extinction of 80 per. cent, of the Mollusca, can hardly be assumed on 

 such grounds. 



I shaU. now consider more particularly the tendency of the testi- 

 mony furnished by the fossils. And, taking first Cytlierea planivieta, 

 of the Miocene of Jamaica, it is to be observed that this fossil has 

 no near recent ally in the "West Indies, but it is closely related to 

 C. erycinoides of the Miocene of Europe. Now both C. erycinoides 

 and C. planivieta are closely related to 0. erycina of Ceylon. As it 

 is a physical impossibility that a migration should take place from 

 the existing to a fossil fauna t, it follows that the Miocene form 

 must have migrated to the east. But as the "West-Indian shell is 

 allied to the Bordeaux species, it may have been that its route lay 

 through southern Europe, which it possibly reached through north- 

 em Africa. Its "West-Indian Miocene form was thus C. planivieta, 

 its European Miocene form C. erycinoides, and its Eastern form C. 

 erycina. Lest it should be supposed, however, that I rest my case 

 on a single species, I will mention some other examples. Takiug the 

 Echinoderms first, we find that three species of Ecliinolampas occur 

 in the Caribean Miocene, their nearest allies being found in the 

 Maltese beds. That genus is quite extinct in the AYest Indies, its 

 place being filled by Echinometra, which is as abundant now amongst 

 the Antilles as the extinct Echinolampades were formerly. The only 

 recent species of Echinolampas, three in number, inhabit Senegal, 

 the Bed Sea, and the Pacific. Cidaris Melitensis, of AnguiUa, is to 

 me undistinguishable from the Maltese urchin. Of the genus 

 Cidaris the living species are chiefly found in Eastern seas. 



* Qiiart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xx. (1864) p. 62. 



t Hamilton, Address to the Geol. Soc, Quart. Joiirn. Greol. Soc. vol. xxi. p xciv. 



