118 
THE TERTIARY GEOLOGY OF THE 
The fossil coral fauna of this island is closely related to that of well-known Oligocene 
localiti(>s in Italy, as the Crosara and Castel Gomberto district, whose position in the 
geological scale they undoubtedly represent. This relationship is indicated by Duncan 
and oUier authors, and the writer is Informed to the same effect by letter from Prof. 
Edward Suess, of '^"ienna, one of the profoundest workers in the field of the Tertiaries. 
'I'he same eminent authority informs me that the Vicenza deposits above indicated are 
the unquestionable equivalents of the sands of Fontainebleau and of the marine 
Oligocene sands of the Mayence basin, and we thus have the parallelism established 
between our Vicksburg or orbitoitic beds and those of the typical Oligocene of 
southern Europe. The Orbitoides ManfeUi, as already stated, also abounds in the 
lower limestone layer of the island of Malta,* and this layer has likewise been iden- 
tified to be of Oligocene age, and to represent a part of the “ Bormidian ” of Sismonda, 
the older marine molassc of Bavaria and Switzerland, and probably also the Sotzka 
beds of the Vienna basin.f The relationship existing between the Florida orbitoitic 
rock and the deposits in some of the West India Islands which have been referred to the 
true Oligocene, is shown, irrespective of the great development of Orbitoides Mavtelli, 
in the general character of the associated foi’aminiferal fauna. Thus we have in some 
l)laces a sufficient abundance of Opercidinm {CristeUaria rotella of Conrad) and 
Numvinrniw,X and of species only doubtfully distinct from those found in Antigua, 
Trinidad or Jamaica. One or two other species of Orbitoides also occur, one very 
much of the 0. dispamais type, and the other severely recalling 0. ejdiippium. A 
further relationship with the equivalent St. Bartholomew deposits is established by 
the pre.sence of at least two of the distinctive echinoids described from that island by 
Cotteau§ — Euspataugm Clevei and E. Antillarum — and doubtless other identical 
forms will be Ibund. 
No unequivocal deposits of Miocene age have thus far been detected on the Gulf 
slojic, although strong grounds exist for the supposition that the formation designated by 
llilgard as the “Grand Gulf Group” belongs to this period of geological time, but to 
which division or horizon of the same, it is as yet impossible to state. 0;i the Atlantic 
border the Miocene extends through the States of New Jersey, Delaware. Maryland, 
V irgmia. North and South Carolina, and Georgia, following in a general way the trend 
of the Eocene, and, where not completely overlapping this last, lying between it and the 
coast. In North and South Carolina, also elsewhere, it is very largely obscured by 
c posits o post- Pliocene age. A patch of Miocene has been determined in the 
peninsula of Honda, near Rock Spring, in Orange Co., and not improbably a more or 
less c ontinuous strip will be found to extend to this point southward from the 
* Geol. Mag., i, p. 104, 1864. 
GeoI.^2cha!; ^ ^oemes, Jahrb. K. K. 
I N. Sciences of Philadelphia, July, 1882 
§ K. Svens. \ et.-Akad. Hand!., 1874. ^ 
