Berkeley Cotter (J.C.)

In the extract from the Communications of the Geological Survey, volume II, issue II, a work was published with the following title: Report on some tertiary fossils of the Madeira archipelago by J. C. Berkeley Cotter, accompanied by another report on some terrestrial fossil mollusks from the same archipelago, by Alberto A. Girard. In the prologue of this work, the following is read: The study elements submitted to our examination are not sufficient to precisely determine the subdivision of the stratigraphic system to which the deposits they contained belong; but they serve, we believe, to generally confirm the conclusions reached by the wise professor from Zurich (Karl Mayer) that the fossiliferous extracts from the island of Porto Santo and neighboring islands, which Bowdich had already identified as tertiary in 1823, are part of the Helvetian stage, but we should not exclude the possibility that part of these deposits belong to the Tortonian or a higher stage of the Miocene system. The study elements mentioned in the part of the prologue transcribed were provided by Rev. Father Ernesto Schmitz, who was then a professor at the Seminary of Funchal. Berkeley passed away in December 1919.