536 MR. E. J. LECHMERE GUPPY ON THE 



feet casts found near San Pernando in Trinidad. Of these casts 

 some are fully 6 inches long. Some Pwna-like shells, also in the 

 state of casts, found in these beds are still larger than this. Erycina 

 tensa, a near ally of E. obliqua, Caillat, of the Paris Eocene, was 

 described by me from the Manzanilla Beds in' Trinidad. Gabb 

 included the name in his list of the Miocene fossils of Haiti. When 

 dealing with the fossils of that island I passed over this observation, 

 but I have since seen reason to believe that Gabb's shell was not 

 Erycina tensa, but the flatter valve of a species of Corbula. These 

 corrections leave us with a single moUuscan species (Corhula vieta) in 

 common between the Eocene and the Miocene of the West Indies. 

 The foraminifera of the shallow-water beds (Orbitoides, Nummulina. 

 and Amjpliistegina) are found in Miocene as well as in Eocene 

 formations, while the foraminifera of the deep-water beds are 

 nearly all of existing species. Deep-water foraminifera are scarcely 

 available as a guide to the age of the deposits in which they are 

 found; but they are valuable indications of the depth of water 

 in which those deposits were formed. Among the characteristics of 

 the foraminiferal fauna of the Waparima marls are the following : — 



1st. Absence or great rarity of shallow-water forms (except in 

 the admittedly shallow-water beds, namely the Orbitoides-, Amphis- 

 tegina-, and Shell-beds). 



2nd. Absence or rarity of pelagic forms, such as Pulvinulina 

 Menardi and P. Micheliniana. Sjphceroidina and Pullenia are rare. 

 In some beds Orbulina is rather abundant. 



3rd. Abundance of certain deep-water forms, as Pidvinulina 

 ipauperata. 



It appears from the evidence derived from the nature of the 

 Naparima rocks, their fossil contents, and the movements which 

 have affected them and the other formations of Trinidad, that during 

 the Cretaceous and Eocene periods there was a sea having a con- 

 siderable but variable depth of water, say up to 1000 fathoms and 

 more, in the region now occupied by the microzoic rocks of Trinidad. 

 It is probable that this sea extended on the north to the base of the 

 northern range of hills, a distance of some 20 or 25 miles from the 

 northern limit of the Naparima deposits. During the Cretaceo- 

 Eocene period the northern mountains probably formed an unbroken 

 chain with the littoral Cordillera of Yenezuela. This chain may be 

 called the " Parian Pange." According to abundantly clear evidence 

 adduced by me in 1877, in a paper on the ' Physical Geography 

 and Fossils of the Older Rocks of Trinidad V the great chasms 

 between Trinidad and Venezuela called the Bocas del Drago were 

 produced by subsidence. Previous to this the Parian Pange pro- 

 bably formed the southern boundary of the Caribean continent, 

 and was a barrier through which no large river found its way, and 

 down the flanks of which only minor streams flowed, so that the 

 clearness of the oceanic water at the distance of 20 miles or so from 

 land was not seriously interfered with. The Parian Range may be 



^ Proc. Scient. Assoc. Trinidad, December 1877, p. 103. 



1 



