148 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 
The next important step in our knowledge of the geology 
of the islands was the commencement of the Government 
Geological Survey ; the island first examined being Trini- 
dad. The determination of the tertiary rocks of the island 
was based upon what had been previously published by Mr. 
Carrick Moore. But the classification thus arrived at was 
Imperfect. This fault was in great measure due no doubt 
to the very little attention paid to the fossils ; the object of 
the survey being principally economic and practical geolo- 
gy. Still, a useful warning may be drawn from this, as to 
the impossibility of obtaining correct views without the aid 
-of the higher sciences. 
The greatest share of the verification of the Caribean 
Miocene fell to the lot of Dr. Duncan, who described the 
■rich series of fossil corals from the tertiary beds of Antigua, 
Jamaica, Haiti and other islands. Dr. Duncan’s elaborate 
and highly-successful investigations enabled him to confirm 
the previous generalizations on the age of the Caribean 
Miocene, and to perceive and illustrate the applicability of 
the theory of the migration of organised beings to the case 
in question. His researches tended to give a greater degree 
of probability to the hypothesis of the tertiary Atlantis on i 
which Heer had labored, and to the support of which the I 
arguments of Forbes, Godwin- Austen and Darwin had lent | 
such force. 
The next advance in West-Indian geology was due to 
the zeal and industry of Mr. Barrett, Director of the Geo- i 
logical Survey of the West-Indies. That naturalist collected 
a fine series of remains from the Jamaican tertiaries ; but 
before he could describe them he lost his life in diving for 
those living organisms a knowledge of which was necessary 
to enable him to judge accurately as to the true nature of 
