Vol. 51.] PALEONTOLOGY, ETC. OP THE WEST INDIES. 255 



22. Contributions to the Paleontology and Physical Geology of 

 the West Indies. By J. W. Gregory, D.Sc, F.G.S. (Read 

 February 20th, 1895.) 



[Plate XL] 



Contents. 



Page 



I. Introduction 255 



II. The Corals of the Raised Reefs of Barbados 257 



III. List of Mollusca from the Low-level Reef's of Barbados 286 



IV. The Occurrence of the Oceanic Series in Cuba 293 



V. Additions to the Fossil Fauna of Antigua 295 



VI. The Correlation of the Barbados Rocks and its Bearing on 



the History of the Caribbean Area 296 



VII. Summary of Conclusions 308 



I. Introduction. 



Shortly after Mr. Jukes-Browne's return from Barbados in 1889, 

 he asked me to identify a collection of fossil corals which he had 

 made on that island. A very cursory examination showed that 

 the synonymy of the coral fauna of the West Indies was in such 

 confusion that it would be impossible properly to execute this 

 task, and work out the relations of these Barbadian fossils, with 

 the material then available to me. The causes of the difficulty 

 were as follows :— In the West Indies there are two coral faunas, 

 one recent and the other fossil. The former has been described by 

 the neontologists, the latter by the palaeontologists ; and neither 

 school has devoted adequate attention to the work of the other. 

 If the two faunas had been wholly distinct, this would not have 

 mattered so much ; but unfortunately they overlap, and thus the 

 same species have been twice described. The extent to which this 

 has been carried has been greatly increased by the fact that many 

 late Pleistocene species have been mixed in collections with those 

 of the older Kainozoic deposits. The synonymy has been still 

 further complicated by the imperfection of the original figures and 

 descriptions upon which most of the species are based. The West 

 Indian corals were favourite objects in the collections of the eariy 

 naturalists, and thus the great majority of the species date back to the 

 works of the museographers of the last century. The illustrations 

 given by these authors show the mode of growth and general 

 appearance of the corals, but the generic characters are often un- 

 recognizable. It is, therefore, not surprising that very different 

 interpretations have been placed upon them. 



To overcome these difficulties it was necessary to obtain a 

 collection of specimens from the reefs of the district whence the 

 fossils had come, and to cut sections of these so as to be able to 

 institute a comparison on equal terms. It was also necessary to 

 examine the types of the recent species described by the neonto- 



Q.J.G. S. No. 203. u 



