Vol. S^.'] THE CORAL-ROCKS OF BARBADOS. 337 



petroleum, and is underlain by highly-bituminous sandstones, clays, 

 shales, and grits. These lie unconformably in broad folds upon beds 

 belonging to the Lower Scotland Group. The fossils collected from 

 them by Mr. G. F. Franks and myself are all of Oligocene species. 



(3) The Oceanic Series. This was described by Mr. Jukes- 

 Browne and myself in the Quarterly Journal of this Society for 

 May 1892, vol. xlviii, pp. 170-226. The age of the Oceanic Series 

 is probably Miocene. 



(4) The Coral-Bock Group, which has been shown to form 

 in places a consecutive uninterrupted series, from Globigerina-m&rls 

 through foraminiferal rocks (rich in shallow- water forms) and basal 

 reef-rocks (free from corals) to true coral-rock. The age of this 

 succession probably ranges from the Pliocene through the Pleistocene 

 to recent times. The only difference which has been noticed up to 

 the present in the molluscan fauna of the older reef-rocks, from that 

 of the lowest upraised reefs and the limestone now in course of 

 formation, is that some of the shells in the older rocks, although 

 belonging to species still existing in the West Indian province, are 

 of larger and more robust types. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXIIL 



Geological map of a portion of the Island of Barbados, on the scale of 1 inch 

 to the mile ; and longitudinal section from Mount Misery to near Bell 

 Point on the same horizontal scale. 



Discussion. 



The President remarked that, without a personal acquaintance 

 with the ground in dispute, it was hardly possible to offer a criticism 

 of the paper. They had, of course, still to hear what might be urged 

 in defence of the views which had been opposed by the Author; but, 

 so far as he could judge, the balance of probabilities seemed to be 

 strongly against these views. When the normal mode of formation 

 of coral-islands is considered, in which the movements of the crust 

 are slow and tranquil and the elevation or subsidence compara- 

 tively equable, it appears to be highly improbable that a series of 

 disturbances of so serious a kind should have occurred as would be 

 required to account for the intercalation of a calcareous member 

 with highly-inclined bedding. The speaker thought it much more 

 likely that the total thickness of coral-rock in Barbados, as in 

 other islands, was not more than 200 or 300 feet, and that the 

 supposed formation of some 15,000 feet of tilted strata could be 

 satisfactorily explained, as the Author had shown, by landslips 

 affecting calcareous accumulations in the deposition of which 

 current-bedding had been developed. 



U. J. G. S. No. 251, 



