ANNUAL REPORT—GEOLOGY. 
19 
Palatka and recognized the formation as the “White Or- 
bitulite (Orbitoides) Limestone 7 ’. 
The views of Agassiz and LeConte gained wide circula¬ 
tion and were for a generation the accepted views as to 
the origin of the peninsula. The credit for again estab¬ 
lishing the true character of the limestone of the interior 
of Florida is due to Professor Eugene A. Smith, State 
Geologist of Alabama. Professor Smith’s paper appeared 
in 1881, his observations on the geology of Florida, having 
been made during the previous year, while acting as spe¬ 
cial agent for the cotton culture report of the 10th Cen¬ 
sus.* While the observations made by Smith were not 
sufficiently detailed to permit of a differentiation of the 
several formations occurring in the interior of the State, 
his conclusions as to the history of the formation of the 
peninsula were substantially correct. 
The Florida deposits are all of comparatively recent 
date geologically. The place of the formations as now 
known in the geological time scale is indicated by the 
table given on the following page. 
The Archeozoic at the bottom of the table is the oldest 
of the large time divisions; the Cenozoic at the top, is 
the latest. Similarly the Eocene is the oldest division of 
the Cenozoic, while the Pleistocene is the most modern 
and leads up through recent formations to the present 
time. 
The oldest formation known in Florida is the Vicksburg 
Limestone, which is believed to belong, as indicated by the 
table, to the Oligocene division of the Cenozoic. The 
conditions under which this limestone was formed were, 
as indicated by the rock itself, as follows: A clear sea 
of medium depth free from land sediment in which marine 
life, especially the minute organisms known as the fora- 
minifera, abounded, the shells of these small animals, 
along with larger shells, making up the limestone. Of 
the many fossils occurring in this limestone the most 
*Am. Jour. Sci. (3) Yol. XXI, pp. 292-309,1881. 
