133 
OX THE FOSSIL FOEAMIXIFERA OF MALTA AND 
GOZO. 
By Professor T. Eupeet Jones, F.Gr.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 tliese islands are, in 
downward succession, — 
1. Upper Limestone ; fossilifcrous. 
2. Soft sandy rock, consisting of yellow, green, and black sand in 
variable pro'portions, and containing many shells and echinoderms, 
chiefly as casts, and sliarks' 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 bard ; with Scutella suhrotunda, 
fish-teetli, and a few other fossils. 
These strata have been described by Captain Spratt, in the Geol. 
Soc. Proc, vol. iv. p. 225, etc., and their fossils determined and 
enumerated by Professor E. Forbes, ib., p. 230, etc. Dr. AVright 
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. AVright communicated a paper on the Maltese Strata and 
Echinoderms to the Geological Society, in 18(53. 
Having lately received, from Captain F. W. Hutton and Dr. A. Leith 
Adams, some fine specimens of foraminifera from the ISLaltese beds, 
carefully labelled as to their respective strata, as well as some notes 
on tlie strata from the same friends, I am enabled to add something 
as to the distrit)ution of the foratninifera. 
Stratum No. 1, which, being largely composed of corallines (Nul- 
liporje, E. Forbes's List, he. cif.), 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, 
Pecten Pandora being one of its most abundant fossils. 
Stratum No. 2, varving from 1 to 30 feet in thickness, is in many 
parts composed almost entirely of the little flat foraminifer that was 
formerlv mistaken for a numinulite and a lenticulite, but is really 
Heferosfeqina depressa. The specimens of this bed (from Dmgli, 
Malta, where it is 30 feet thick), with which I have been favoured 
by Captain Hutton, are dark-vellow friable shell-rock or hmestone, 
C(>r.oisting of Ileterostegina?' massed together in every position, 
mixed with a few valves of Pecten, in a scanty granular calcareous 
