133 



ON THE FOSSIL FOBAMINIFEBA OF MALTA AND 



GOZO. 



Bt Professor T. Kttpert Jones, F.G.S. 



In a former volume of the ' Geologist ' there are notices of the 

 geology of Malta and Gozo (vol. for 1860, pp. 198, 275, 421), from 

 which it appears that the stratal groups forming these islands are, in 

 downward succession, — 



1. Upper Limestone ; fossiliferous. 



2. Soft sandy rock, consisting of yellow, green, and black sand in 

 variable proportions, and containing many shells and echinoderms, 

 chiefly as casts, and sharks' teeth. 



3. Bluish marl, with sharks' teeth and other fossils, especially 

 Pecten Burdigalensis. 



4. Light-yellow calcareous freestone ; the common building-stone 

 of the islands, rich with echinoderms, and containing also nautilus, 

 fish-remains, and other fossils : this comprises also a band of choco- 

 late-coloured pebbles, with sharks' teeth. 



5. Lower Limestone, white and hard ; with Scutella subrotunda, 

 fish-teeth, and a few other fossils. 



These strata have been described by Captain Spratt, in the Geol. 

 Soc. Proe., vol. iv. p. 225, etc., and their fossils determined and 

 enumerated by Professor E. Forbes, ib., p. 230, etc. Dr. Wright 

 also gave a notice of the beds, and descriptions of several of their 

 fossils, in a paper published by the Cotteswold Nat. Field-club, and 

 in the Annals Nat. Hist., 2nd ser., vol. xv. ; lastly, Dr. A. L. Adams 

 and Dr. Wright communicated a paper on the Maltese Strata and 

 Echinoderms to the Geological Society, in 1863. 



Having lately received, from Captain F. W. Hutton and Dr. A. Leith 

 Adams, some fine specimens of foraminifera from the Maltese beds, 

 carefully labelled as to their respective strata, as well as some notes 

 on the strata from the same friends, I am enabled to add something 

 as to the distribution of the foraminifera. 



Stratum No. 1, which, being largely composed of corallines (Nul- 

 liporae, E. Forbes's List, loc. cit.), and destitute of corals, seems to 

 have no title to its old name of " Coral-limestone," contains Hete- 

 rostegina depressa, according to Dr. Adams and Captain Hutton ; the 

 latter informs me that this limestone is sometimes 230 feet thick, 

 JBecten Pandora being one of its most abundant fossils. 



Stratum No. 2, varying from 1 to 30 feet in thickness, is in many 

 parts composed almost entirely of the little flat foraminifer that was 

 formerly mistaken for a nummulite and a lenticulite, but is really 

 Heterostegina depressa. The specimens of this bed (from Dingli, 

 Malta, where it is 30 feet thick), with which I have been favoured 

 by Captain Hutton, are dark-yellow friable shell-rock or limestone, 

 consisting of Heterostegina3 massed together in every position, 

 mixed with a few valves of Pecten, in a scanty granular calcareous 



