222 
FLORIDA STATF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 
heads of non-reef-building corals. Buckhorn corals, so common in 
present beach ridges of coral sand, are rare in the oolite exposures 
seen by the writer. 
An oolite from China examined by. Blackwelder, 1 exhibited pe¬ 
culiarities which indicate that the concentric structure of the ovules 
developed when the material composing the rock was loose and some¬ 
what mobile—a calcareous mud. The microscopic structure of the 
Key West and Miami oolites suggests an underwater origin for the 
ovules. The rounded aggregates of calcite that serve as nuclei are 
like aggregates now lying on the bottom of the Bay of Florida. Hunt 
thought he saw one case of incipient oolitization in marl at Key West. 
The characteristics of the calcareous sands and marls accumulat¬ 
ing about the keys and in the Bay of Florida, and the distribution, 
topographic relief, bedding, contained fossils and structure of the 
Key West and Miami oolites indicate that the latter were originally 
limy muds, with a varying proportion of lime sand and a little quartz 
sand, which accumulated on the bottom of shallow bays or lagoons, 
where in places the water was relatively still, in places agitated by 
waves and currents strong enough to build up and level off banks and 
bars. Conditions approaching these exist in many exposures of water 
about the keys. - That oolites may be forming now on the Bay of 
Florida is possible. That they will be found in process of formation 
is not certain. Examination of material from the surface of banks 
will probably give negative results, examination of material buried 
for some time may give positive results. 
LOSTMANS RIVER LIMESTONE. 
Synonymy:—This term is applied to the noil-oolitic fossiliferous 
limestones which apparently underlie the western coast of southern 
Florida and outcrop inland. Though doubtless noted by army officers 
at the time of the Seminole War, and by other observers since, the 
first published description of these limestones which the writer has 
been able to find is that of Dali, 2 who described samples collected by 
Willcox in the winter of 1887-1888 at the head of Allens River and 
in Lostmans River. 
Willis 3 subsequently examined the samples and took certain pe¬ 
culiarities of those from Lostmans River and points in Dali’s descrip¬ 
tion of the location from whence they came as showing that the rocks 
might be in process of formation. 
1 Blackwelder, E. Researches in China, 1907, p. 380. 
2 Dali, Wm. H., and Harris, G. D. Correlation Paper; Neocene of North 
America; U. S. Geol. Sur. Bull. 84, 1892, p. 100. 
3 Willis, Bailey, Journal of Geology, I, 1892. 
