Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
The first account of tbe geology of Socotra we owe to Lieutenant J. R. Wellsted, who compiled the Admiralty chart and map, and in 1835 described the island in a detailed memoir, in which he showed that it consists of a mass of granite capped by limestones. Nothing material was added to this description until 1883, when Professor Bonney published his account of the extensive rock collection made by Professor J. B. Balfour during a six weeks' visit to the island in February and March, 1879. Professor Bonney's study of the rock specimens enables him to prove that Socotra consists of a block of Archean rocks covered in places by massive limestones, which, on the evidence of their foraminifera, Professor T. R. Jones suggested were probably of Miocene age
page 529 note 1 Wellsted, J.R., “Memoir on the Island of Socotra”: Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc., vol. v (1835), pp. 129–229Google Scholar, and map.
page 529 note 2 Bonney, T. G., “On a Collection of Rock Specimens from the Island of Socotra”: Phil. Trans., vol. 174 (1883), pp. 273–294CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pis. vi and vii. Some preliminary remarks on the geology of the island were included in Professor Balfour's report, “On the Island of Socotra”: Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1881, p. 486.
page 529 note 3 According to Balfour (“Botany of Socotra”: Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., vol. xxxi, 1888, p. lxxv) the island has been a land area since the Permo-Carboniferous, and “an island certainly from Tertiary times.”
page 529 note 4 Sauer, “Ueber Riebeckit, ein neues Glied der Hornblendegruppe”: Zeit. deut. geol. Ges., vol. xl (1888), pp. 138–146.
page 529 note 5 Raisin, C. A., “Rock Specimens from Socotra”: Geol. Mag., Dec. III, Vol. V (1888), pp. 504–7Google Scholar.
page 530 note 1 Kossmat, F.: Sitz. math. nat. Cl.k. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 1899, No. ix, pp. 73–82Google Scholar.
page 531 note 1 Bonney: op. cit., p. 287, pi. vii, fig. 5.
page 531 note 2 Velain, Ch.: “Descript. géol. presqu'île d'Aden,” 1878, p. 18Google Scholar, fig. 2.
page 531 note 3 Raisin: op. cit., p. 505, fig. 1.
page 532 note 1 Bonney: op. cit., p. 287, pi. vii, fig. 6.
page 532 note 2 “Geol. Papers on Western India,” 1857, p. 620. On p. 621 of the same work Carter describes ‘The Brothers,’ the islets between Socotra and Abd-el-Kuri, as alsoformed of granite and diorite capped by limestone.