TH£ NEW YORK 

 ACADEMY OF SCiZNCSft' 



(SOCIETY PAPER No. 440.) 



on a Collection of fossils from springvale, 



NEAR COUVA, TRINIDAD. 



By R. J. Lechmere Guppv, 

 Honorary Consulting Geologist to The Society. 



In our study of the Geology of Trinidad, we must proceed 

 step by step, but the general cultivation of elementary geology 

 would facilitate a more rapid progress. Everyone who digs a 

 quarry or makes a boring should preserve samples of the 

 materials, even the least likely looking, found or passed through, 

 and submit them to those who have the means of scientific exam- 

 ination. We have now made a real and important advance in 

 ©ur knowledge of the Tertiaries ; first, from the information 

 gained from the Manjak Mines and, secondly, from the discovery 

 of the Springvale fossils. These give us the means of effecting 

 some improvement upon our previous classifications, and to speak 

 with more certainty upon some points, but we have a long way 

 to go before reaching finality, or anything like it. 



I make these rerriarks prefatory to a report on a collection of 

 shells found at Springvale, near Couva, in this Island. These 

 fossils have been confided to me by the Agricultural Society for 

 examination. 



The two kinds of matrix adherent to these fossils seem to 

 indicate that they come from two beds, one a ferruginous shelly 



