50 The American Geologist. January, 1904. 
Mr. Dall's long and attentive study of the Florida Tertiary has 
brought him to some important and very interesting conclusions., viz. : 
1. The Florida peninsula has experienced a tilting by which the east- 
ern margin has been elevated between twenty and thirty feet, and the 
western coast depressed the same amount. 
2. The hypotheses propounded by Dr. J. W. Spencer involving the 
elevation of some of the Antilles and Florida many thousand feet and 
their submergence within a comparatively recent period, are not accept- 
ed. "Indeed to me the proposition is inconceivable as a fact and incom- 
patible with every geologic and paleontologic fact of south Florida 
which has come to my knowledge." 
3. The Oligocene, known in Europe, has its equivalent in Florida. 
4. The Alaskan lignite beds (the Kenai formation) are probably 
Oligocene. 
5. The marine Oligocene limestone that formi tne substructure of 
the Floridan peninsula, has been drilled to the depth of more than 2COO 
feet without definitely reaching the subjacent Eocene. 
6. The Oligocene was terminated by great physical changes, such 
as the uplifting of the middle American highlands, ine larger Antillean 
islands and the peninsular island of Florida. The two Americans we.e 
united, and at the north the boreal coasts were depressed "and the 
waters of the Miocene sea were extended over the ruins of the Oligo- 
cene forests." 
7. Along the gulf coast the transition to the Miocene was sudden, 
involving an absolute and complete change of fauna. The change was 
from subtropical to cool temperate. 
8. Since Miocene time to the present, "no discontinuity of the link 
uniting North and South America is probable, and certainly none 
amounting to a free communication between the two oceans." As the 
Miocene elevation continued Florida became united 10 the continent by 
the closing of the Suwannee strait and cold water was permanently 
excluded from the gulf. The culmination of this movement ended the 
Miocene. 
9. By a downward movement of the continental border the Pliocene 
was introduced, allowing the return of the fauna of southern latitudes. 
Some of these subtropical species are known to have reached as far 
north as Martha's Vineyard, although the approach of the Glacial pe- 
riod, which terminated the Pliocene, partly obliterated the records of the 
Pliocene, and such records are fragmentary even as far south as the 
Carolinas. 
10. The obliteration of Pliocene life caused by the Glacial epoch 
was nothing like the "clean sweep" at the beginniug of the Miocene. 
"The latter is the sharpest and most emphatic faunal change since the 
Cretaceous on our coasts." This summary of the changes between the 
Vicksburg and the Glacial epoch is regarded by Mr. Dall as the most 
important result of the study of the Tertiary fauna of Florida. 
The author also summarily states what is known of the various Ter- 
tiary formations at the type localities in the southern and eastern states. 
