279 



Guppy Rkprint 



PAPER No. 16. 



TO BAG AN FOSSILS 



Recorded in the "List of Scientific Papers" by Guppy as 

 having been published in the "Bulletin of the Trinidad Botanical 

 Department, April 1903, p. 541." The separate is labelled : 



514. — Tobagan Fossils. — On some specimens of Fossils 

 from Tobago in the Victoria Museum, Trinidad. 



Page 1 — of the Separate 



At the Victoria Museum the other day I saw some Speci- 

 mens from Tobago — one had a Label carefully wrapped round it 

 to the effect that it had been determined by the British Museum 

 Authorities to be Area grandis and therefore was of pleistocene 

 age. This at first puzzled me exceedingly as there did not ap- 

 pear to me the slightest evidence that the Fossil was an Ark — it 

 looked more like an Oyster. However I looked at the other 

 Specimens and the truth then flashed upon me. These two spec- 

 imens were Area patricia described by Sowerby at Page 52 of Vol. 

 VI. (1850) of the Journal of the Geological Society of London 

 (see my Report on the Tobago Specimens 1901). The likeness 

 of Area patricia to A. grandis is alluded to by Sowerby in the 

 place indicated and the differences are pointed out. If a Concho- 

 logist met with this shell by itself he might probably identify it 

 with Area grandis and that being a living species he might 

 thence infer the age of the stratum containing it to be pleisto- 

 cene. But in Haiti and also in Trinidad Area pafricia occurs 

 with a very extensive molluskan Fauna containing a large pro- 

 portion of extinct species many of which bear a remarkable re- 

 semblance to living pacific species ; and those Paleontologists 

 who have studied the matter have decided the age of the forma- 

 tion to be miocene {see my Paper on the West Indian tertiary 

 Fossils Geological Magazine 1874, Page 433 ; also Proceedings of 

 the Scientific Association of Trinidad, December 1867, Page 146). 



Though Gabb in his account of the Geology of San Domin- 

 go identifies Area patricia with A. grandis and gives his reasons 

 for so doing I am not prepared (having often found myself at 



