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Some Account of Barrettia, a New and Remarkable Fossil Shell From the Hippurite Limestone of Jamaica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2016

S. P. Woodward
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Extract

The fossil represented in the accompanying figures is one of that kind whose discovery severely tests the faith of the naturalist in his previous conclusions, and may appear to raise a suspicion not only respecting the sufficiency of his data, but even as to the correctness of his method of investigation. Almost any person, at first sight of the specimen, would think he was looking at a coral, and it would seem like an attempt to impose on one's credulity to say it was a bivalve shell, like an oyster or a clam.

Yet there is no doubt it is a kind of Hippurite, although the rays give it a novel and extraordinary character. The discoverer had quite satisfied himself on this point before he brought it to England and placed it in our hands. It was found last year (January, 1861), by Mr. Lucas Barrett, F.G.S., Director of the Geological Survey of the British West Indies, in the parish of Portland, in the north-east of Jamaica. This part of the island, lying to the north of the principal range of the Blue Mountains, which run east and west, is itself mountainous, rising to the height of 7000 feet. The hippurite limestone is well seen on the banks of the Back river, a tributary of the Rio Grande, at about fifteen miles from the coast.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Geologist , Volume 5 , Issue 10 , October 1862 , pp. 372 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1862

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References

page 372 note * This is not the only case of the sort. The genus Goniophyllum, one of the “Zo-antharia rugosa,” established by Milne-Edwards, is apparently identical with Calceola, the well-known bivalve fossil of the Eifel, placed by Lamarck with the “Rudistes,” and admitted as a Brachiopod, with a sign of doubt, by Mr. Davidson and myself. Gonio-phyllum pyramidale is a scarce fossil of the Upper Silurian at Dudley and Malvern, but not uncommon in the Baltic island of Gothland. It was described as a Calceola by Girard in 1842. Another species, which is so like Calceola sandalina that Murchison and Veraeuil assumed the existence of Devonian strata in Gothland, on the strength of its occurrence, has small rootlets of attachment along the borders of its “hinge-area,” and a vesicular interior, like Cystiphyllum. After carefully examining a series of examples belonging to M. Lindström, of Wisby, we can only say that they are probably neither Brachiopoda nor Zoantharia, although very like each in some respects.

page 373 note * Quarterly Journal of the Geol. Soc. xvi. p. 324.

page 373 note † Trans. Geol. Soc., 2nd series, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 143.

page 374 note * The inner layer of shells in the families Pectinidœ and Chamidœ, as well as the pearly lining of the Aviculidœ, Turbinidœ, etc., has the constitution of Aragonite, while the outer layer consists of Calcite, as stated by Gustav Rose, and confirmed by the observations of Mr. Sorby. The bi-axial character of mother-of-pearl may usually be detected with a tourmaline in any thin, translucent section, such as a counter or the edge of a pearl paper-knife.

page 375 note * ‘Manual of the Mollusca,’ pt. ii. p. 279 (1854), and Quarterly Journal of the Geol. Soc., vol. xi. p. 40, 1855. (Read May 24, 1854.)

page 376 note * Bull. Soc. Géol. France, séance du 21 mai 1855 (published March, 1856.)

page 376 note † Ann. Nat. Hist., Feb. 1855, p. 100, and Supplement to ‘Manual of Mollusca,’ p. 469.

page 376 note ‡ Especially Cardilia, Megalodon, Pachyrisma, Diceras, and Caprotina.