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

• Published in: The Geologist
• Main Author: Woodward, S. P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1862
• Subjects: Barrett; Blue Mountains; Back River
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1359465600002495; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1359465600002495

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.