m 



94 CONTRIBUTION TO THE PALEONTOLOGY OF TRINIDAD. 



LSI 



The Cretaceous shell described by Stoliczka 75 as Turritella elicita from the 

 Arrialoor group at Ninny oor, southern India, is much more closely allied to the 

 Soldado shells than to those of Maria Farinha, Brazil, with which Dr. White 

 identified it, but, judging from the illustration, the Indian Turritella was more 

 slender in proportion to its length than the Soldado form. 



Stoliczka's original description of T. elicita is as follows: "Turr. testa per- 

 longa, valde attenuata anfractibus numerosis, postice late tumescentibus, ad 

 medium paulo excavatis, superioribus spiraliter minute striatis atque liratis, 

 inferioribus lsevigatis; striis incrementi minutis, supra medium valde insinuatis; 

 ultimo anfractu ad peripheriam basalem subcarinato; basi paululum producta; 

 apertura subquadrangulari, altiore quam lata." 



Both the Indian and the Soldado shell show a marked flattening of the promi- 

 nent ridge at the distal border of the whorls close to the suture. Judging from 

 the fragments the Soldado adult shells must have been about 140 mm. in length. 

 But as only few and fragmentary specimens have been obtained from the Soldado 

 Midway and from the Indian Cretaceous beds (Ninnyoor, Arrialoor group) exact 

 comparisons cannot be made. At present one can only say that with the excep- 

 tion of its slenderer form the Indian Turritella appears to be almost identical 

 with that from Soldado. Whether this resemblance is due to specific descent or 

 merely to parallelism in development is left as an interesting and open question. 



Locality. — Bed No. 2, Soldado Rock, Gulf of Paria, near the Serpent's Mouth. 



Geological horizon. — Midway Eocene. Equivalent to that of the Alabama 

 Midway and of the Rio Maria Farinha beds, State of Pernambuco, Brazil. 



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Turritella nerinexa Harris. Plate XII, Figure 25. 



Turritella nerinexa Harris, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., p. 82, pi. 9, fig. 9, 1895. 

 Turritella nerinexa Harris, Bull. Amer. Pal., vol. I, p. 225, pi. 11, fig. 14, 1896. 



Harris' original description. — "Size and general form of a fragment (the only 

 known specimen) as indicated by the figure; number of whorls unknown, orna- 

 mented by (1) fine, even spiral striae, (2) a subsutural row of pustules or crenules, 

 and (3) a slightly raised or faint ridge at the base of each whorl becoming obsolete 

 in the lower whorls, but increasing in strength above so as to nearly equal in size 

 the subsutural line of crenules. 



11 Locality.— Black Bluff, Brazos River, extreme northern limit of Milam Co., 

 Milam Bluff of Penrose's report. 



u Geological horizon. — Midway Eocene. 



" Type.— Texas State Museum." 



Remarks— It is most interesting to find at Soldado this Turritella which is as 

 beautiful as it is rare. After finding the single specimen in Texas, Professor 

 Harris later found others, also in the Midway Eocene, in Alabama, and in 

 Arkansas. 



The shells from Soldado answer the description of the type perfectly. One 



75 Pal. Indica, Geol. Surv. India, vol. II, p. 221, pi. XIV, fig. 3, 1868. 



x Mi 



in 



