Revision of the fossil Echini from the tertiary strata of Java

In the year 1854 J. A. Herklots published a description of the fossil Echini, which had been found by Junghuhn in the tertiary strata of Java, in the fourth part of a publication, entitled «Fossiles de Java.” I have been occupied in working out the other groups of animals from these deposits, which by the death of Herklots was left unachieved. The results of my investigations have been embodied in the work entitled »Die Tertiärschichten auf Java”, the palaeontological part of which has appeared a short time ago. I succeeded in demonstrating, that a considerable percentage of these fossils are yet represented in the recent fauna of the Indian Ocean, and for this reason I was astonished to find, that all the Echini, with only a single exception, were described by Herklots as new species. This induced me to undertake a revision of these species, which has indeed led me to results entirely different from his. Not only a large number, but by far the majority of all the wellpreserved individuals could be identified with species, which are still living in the Indian Ocean. As the fossils have been fully described by Herklots in the publication mentioned above, a short enumeration of my diagnoses may suffice, with the exception of two fossils, which, curiously enough, Herklots has never mentioned. I may here remark, that Herklots’ figures are often incorrect, showing either more or less than the fossils themselves, a circumstance which I am obliged to mention, in order to explain the discrepancies between those figures and the diagnoses, which I am about to give.