THE MIOCENE PERIOD.
The Miocene formation is not present in England; unless we suppose, with Sir Charles Lyell, that it is represented by the Hempstead beds of the Isle of Wight.
It is on the European continent that we find the most striking characteristics of the Miocene period. In our own islands traces of it are few and far between. In the Island of Mull certain beds of shale, interstratified with basalt and volcanic ash, are described by the Duke of Argyll as of Miocene date;[90] and Miocene clay is found interstratified with bands of imperfect coal at Bovey Tracey. The vegetation which distinguished the period is a mixture of the vegetable forms peculiar to the burning climate of the present tropical Africa, with such as now grow in temperate Europe, such as Palms, Bamboos, various kinds of Laurels, Combretaceæ (Terminalia), with the grand Leguminales of warm countries (as Phaseolites, Erythrina, Bauhinia, Mimosites, Acacia); Apocyneæ analogous to the genera of our tropical regions; a Rubiacea altogether tropical (Steinhauera) mingle with some Maples, Walnut-trees, Beeches, Elms, Oaks, and Wych-elms, genera now confined to temperate and even cold countries.
Besides these, there were, during the Miocene period, mosses, mushrooms, charas, fig-trees, plane-trees, poplars, and evergreens. “During the second period of the Tertiary epoch,” says Lecoq, “the Algæ and marine Monocotyledons were less abundant than in the preceding age; the Ferns also diminished, the mass of Conifers were reduced, and the Palms multiplied in species. Some of those cited in the preceding period seem still to belong to this, and the magnificent Flabellaria, with the fine Phœnicites, which we see now for the first time, gave animation to the landscape. Among the Conifers some new genera appear; among them we distinguish Podocarpens, a southern form of vegetation of the present age. Almost all the arborescent families have their representatives in the forests of this period, where for the first time types so different are united. The waters are covered with Nymphæa Arithnæa (Brongniart); and with Myriophyllites capillifolius (Unger); Culmites animalis (Brongniart); and C. Gœpperti (Munster), spring up in profusion upon their banks, and the grand Bambusinites sepultana throws the shadow of its long articulated stem across them. Some analogous species occupy the banks of the great rivers of the New World; one Umbellifera is even indicated, by Unger, in the Pimpinellites zizioides.
Of this period date some beds of lignite resulting from the accumulation, for ages, of all these different trees. It seems that arborescent vegetation had then attained its apogee. Some Smilacites interlaced like the wild vines with these grand plants, which fell on the ground where they grew, from decay; some parts of the earth, even now, exhibit these grand scenes of vegetation. They have been described by travellers who have traversed the tropical regions, where Nature often displays the utmost luxury, under the screen of clouds which does not allow the rays of the sun to reach the earth. M. D’Orbigny cites an interesting instance which is much to the point. “I have reached a zone,” he says (speaking of Rio Chapura in South America), “where it rains regularly all the year round. We can scarcely perceive the rays of the sun, at intervals, through the screen of clouds which almost constantly veils it. This circumstance, added to the heat, gives an extraordinary development to the vegetation. The wild vines fall on all sides, in garlands, from the loftiest branches of trees whose summits are lost in the clouds.”
The fossil species of this period, to the number of 133, begin to resemble those which enrich our landscapes. Already tropical plants are associated with the vegetables of temperate climates; but they are not yet the same as existing species. Oaks grow side by side with Palms, the Birch with Bamboos, Elms with Laurels, the Maples are united to the Combretaceæ, to the Leguminales, and to the tropical Rubiaceæ. The forms of the species, belonging to temperate climates, are rather American than European.
The luxuriance and diversity of the Miocene flora has been employed by a German savant in identifying and classifying the Middle Tertiary or Miocene strata of Switzerland. We are indebted to Professor Heer, of Zurich, for the restoration of more than 900 species of plants, which he classified and illustrated in his “Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ.” In order to appreciate the value of the learned Professor’s undertaking, it is only necessary to remark that, where Cuvier had to study the position and character of a bone, the botanist had to study the outline, nervation, and microscopic structure of a leaf. Like the great French naturalist, he had to construct a new science at the very outset of his great work.
Fig. 158.—Andrias Scheuchzeri.
The Miocene formations of Switzerland are called Molasse (from the French mol, soft), a term which is applied to a soft, incoherent, greenish sandstone, occupying the country between the Alps and the Jura, and they may be divided into lower, middle, and upper Miocene; the middle one is marine, the other two being fresh-water formations. The upper fresh-water Molasse is best seen at Œningen, in the Rhine valley, where, according to Sir Roderick Murchison, it ranges ten miles east and west from Berlingen, on the right bank, to Waugen and to Œningen, near Stein, on the left bank. In this formation Professor Heer enumerates twenty-one beds. No. 1, a bluish-grey marl seven feet thick, without organic remains, resting on No. 2, limestone, with fossil plants, including leaves of poplar, cinnamon, and pond-weed (Potamogeton). No. 3, bituminous rock, with Mastodon angustidens. No. 5, two or three inches thick, containing fossil Fishes. No. 9, the stone in which the skeleton of the great Salamander Andrias Scheuchzeri ([Fig. 158]) was found. Below this, other strata with Fishes, Tortoises, the great Salamander, as before, with fresh-water Mussels, and plants. In No. 16, Sir R. Murchison obtained the fossil fox of Œningen, Galacynus Œningensis (Owen). In these beds Professor Heer had, as early as 1859, determined 475 species of fossil plants, and 900 insects.
The plants of the Swiss Miocene period have been obtained from a country not one-fifth the size of Switzerland, yet such an abundance of species, which Heer reckons at 3,000, does not exist in any area of equal extent in Europe. It exceeds in variety, he considers, after making every allowance for all not having existed at the same time, and from other considerations, the Southern American forests, and rivals such tropical countries as Jamaica and Brazil. European plants occupy a secondary place, while the evergreen Oaks, Maples, Poplars, and Plane-trees, Robinias, and Taxodiums of America and the smaller Atlantic islands, occupy such an important place in the fossil flora that Unger was induced to suggest the hypothesis, that, in the Miocene period the present basin of the Atlantic was dry land—and this hypothesis has been ably advocated by Heer.
The terrestrial animals which lived in the Miocene period were Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles. Many new Mammals had appeared since the preceding period; among others, Apes, Cheiropteras (Bats), Carnivora, Marsupials, Rodents, Dogs. Among the first we find Pithecus antiquus and Mesopithecus; the Bats, Dogs, and Coati inhabited Brazil and Guiana; the Rats North America; the Genettes, the Marmots, the Squirrels, and Opossums having some affinity to the Opossums of America. Thrushes, Sparrows, Storks, Flamingoes, and Crows, represent the class Birds. Among the Reptiles appear several Snakes, Frogs, and Salamanders. The lakes and rivers were inhabited by Perches and Shad. But it is among the Mammals that we must seek for the most interesting species of animals of this period. They are both numerous and remarkable for their dimensions and peculiarities of form; but the species which appeared in the Miocene period, as in those which preceded it, are now only known by their fossil remains and bones.
The Dinotherium ([Fig. 159]), one of the most remarkable of these animals, is the largest terrestrial Mammal which has ever lived. For a long time we possessed only very imperfect portions of the skeleton of this animal, upon the evidence of which Cuvier was induced erroneously to place it among the Tapirs. The discovery of a lower jaw, nearly perfect, armed with defensive tusks descending from its lower jaw, demonstrated that this hitherto mysterious animal was the type of an altogether new and singular genus. Nevertheless, as it was known that there were some animals of the ancient world in which both jaws were armed, it was thought for some time that such was the case with the Dinotherium. But in 1836, a head, nearly entire, was found in the already celebrated beds at Eppelsheim, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt. In 1837 this fine fragment was carried to Paris, and exposed to public view. It was nearly a yard and a half long, and above a yard wide. The defences, it was found, were enormous, and were carried at the anterior extremity of the lower maxillary bone, and much curved inwards, as in the Morse. The molar teeth were in many respects analogous to those of the Tapir, and the great suborbital apertures, joined to the form of the nasal bone, rendered the existence of a proboscis or trunk very probable. But the most remarkable bone belonging to the Dinotherium which has yet been found is an omoplate or scapula, which by its form reminds us of that of the Mole.
Fig. 159.—Dinotherium.
This colossus of the ancient world, respecting which there has been so much argument, somewhat approaches the Mastodon; it seems to announce the appearance of the Elephant; but its dimensions were infinitely greater than those of existing Elephants, and superior even to those of the Mastodon and of the Mammoth, both fossil Elephants, the remains of which we shall have to describe presently.
Fig. 160.—Teeth of Mastodon.
From its kind of life, and its frugal regimen, this Pachyderm scarcely merited the formidable name of Dinotherium which has been bestowed on it by naturalists (from δεινος, terrible, θηριον, animal). Its size was, no doubt, frightful enough, but its habits seem to have been peaceful. It is supposed to have inhabited fresh-water lakes, or the mouths of great rivers and the marshes bordering their banks by preference. Herbivorous, like the Elephant, it employed its proboscis probably in seizing the plants which hung suspended over the waters, or floated on their surface. We know that the elephants are very partial to the roots of herbaceous plants which grow in flooded plains. The Dinotherium appears to have been organised to satisfy the same tastes. With the powerful natural mattock which Nature had supplied him for penetrating the soil, he would be able to tear from the bed of the river, or lake, feculent roots like those of the Nymphæa, or even much harder ones, for which the mode of articulation of the jaws, and the powerful muscles intended to move them, as well as the large surface of the teeth, so well calculated for grinding, were evidently intended ([Fig. 160]).
The Mastodon was, to all appearance, very nearly of the size and form of our Elephant—his body, however, being somewhat longer, while his limbs, on the contrary, were a little thicker. He had tusks, and very probably a trunk, and is chiefly distinguished from the existing Elephant by the form of his molar teeth, which form the most distinctive character in his organisation. These teeth are nearly rectangular, and present on the surface of their crown great conical tuberosities, with rounded points disposed in pairs to the number of four or five, according to the species. Their form is very distinct, and may be easily recognised. They do not bear any resemblance to those of the carnivora, but are like those of herbivorous animals, and particularly those of the Hippopotamus. The molar teeth are at first sharp and pointed, but when the conical points are ground down by mastication, they assume the appearance presented in [Fig. 161]. When, from continued grinding, the conical teat-like points are more deeply worn, they begin to assume the appearance shown in [Fig. 160]. In [Fig. 162] we represent the head and lower jaw of the Miocene Mastodon; from which it will appear that the animal had two projecting tusks in the lower jaw, corresponding with two of much larger dimensions which projected from the upper jaw.
Fig. 161.—Molar teeth of Mastodon, worn.
It was only towards the middle of the last century that the Mastodon first attracted attention in Europe. About the year 1705, it is true, some bones of this animal had been found at Albany, now the capital of New York, but the discovery attracted little attention. In 1739, a French officer, M. de Longueil, traversed the virgin forests bordering the great river Ohio, in order to reach the great river Mississippi, and the savages who escorted him accidentally discovered on the borders of a marsh various bones, some of which seemed to be those of unknown animals. In this turfy marsh, which the natives designated the Great Salt Lake, in consequence of the many streams charged with salt which lose themselves in it, herds of wild ruminants still seek its banks, attracted by the salt—for which they have a great fondness—such being the reason probably which had caused the accumulation, at this point, of the remains of so large a number of quadrupeds belonging to these remote ages in the history of the globe. M. de Longueil carried some of these bones with him, and, on his return to France, he presented them to Daubenton and Buffon; they consisted of a femur, one extremity of a tusk, and three molar teeth. Daubenton, after mature examination, declared the teeth to be those of a Hippopotamus; the tusk and the gigantic femur, according to his report, belonged to an Elephant; so that they were not even considered to be parts of one and the same animal. Buffon did not share this opinion, and he was not long in converting Daubenton, as well as other French naturalists, to his views. Buffon declared that the bones belonged to an Elephant, whose race had lived only in the primitive ages of the globe. It was then, only, that the fundamental notion of extinct species of animals, exclusively peculiar to ancient ages of the world, began to be entertained for the first time by naturalists—a notion which laid dormant during nearly a century, before it bore the admirable fruits which have since so enriched the natural sciences and philosophy.
Fig. 162.—Head of the Mastodon of the Miocene period.
A, B, the whole head; C, lower jaw.
Buffon gave the fossil the name of the Animal or Elephant of the Ohio, but he deceived himself as to its size, believing it to be from six to eight times the size of our existing Elephant; an estimate which he was led to make by an erroneous notion with regard to the number of the Elephant’s teeth. The Animal of the Ohio had only four molars, while Buffon imagined that it might have as many as sixteen, confounding the germs, or supplementary teeth, which exist in the young animal, with the permanent teeth of the adult individual. In reality, however, the Mastodon was not much larger than the existing species of African Elephant.
The discovery of this animal had produced a great impression in Europe. Becoming masters of Canada by the peace of 1763, the English sought eagerly for more of these precious remains. The geographer Croghan traversed anew the region of the Great Salt Lake, pointed out by De Longueil, and found there some bones of the same nature. In 1767 he forwarded many cases to London, addressing them to divers naturalists. Collinson, among others, the friend and correspondent of Franklin, who had his share in this consignment, took the opportunity of sending a molar tooth to Buffon.
Fig. 163.—Skeleton of Mastodon giganteus.
It was not, however, till 1801 that the remains of the perfect skeleton were discovered. An American naturalist, named Peale, was fortunate enough to get together two nearly complete skeletons of this important animal. Having been apprised that many large bones had been found in the marly clay on the banks of the Hudson, near Newburg, in the State of New York, Mr. Peale proceeded to that locality. In the spring of 1801 a considerable part of one skeleton was found by the farmer who had dug it out of the ground, but, unfortunately, it was much mutilated by his awkwardness, and by the precipitancy of the workmen. Having purchased these fragments, Mr. Peale sent them on to Philadelphia.
Fig. 164.—Mastodon restored.
In a marsh, situated five leagues west of the Hudson, the same gentleman discovered, six months after, a second skeleton of the Mastodon, consisting of a perfect jaw and a great number of bones. With the bones thus collected, the naturalist managed to construct two nearly complete skeletons. One of these still remains in the Museum of Philadelphia; the other was sent to London, where it was exhibited publicly.
Fig. 165.—Molar tooth of Mastodon.
Discoveries nearly analogous to these followed, the most curious of which was made in this manner by Mr. Barton, a Professor of the University of Pennsylvania. At a depth of six feet in the ground, and under a great bank of chalk, bones of the Mastodon were found sufficient to form a skeleton. One of the teeth found weighed about seventeen pounds ([Fig. 165]); but the circumstance which made this discovery the more remarkable was, that in the middle of the bones, and enveloped in a kind of sac which was probably the stomach of the animal, a mass of vegetable matter was discovered, partly bruised, and composed of small leaves and branches, among which a species of rush has been recognised which is yet common in Virginia. We cannot doubt that these were the undigested remains of the food, which the animal had browsed on just before its death.
The aboriginal natives of North America called the Mastodon the father of the ox. A French officer named Fabri wrote thus to Buffon in 1748. The natives of Canada and Louisiana, where these remains are abundant, speak of the Mastodon as a fantastic creature which mingles in all their traditions and in their ancient national songs. Here is one of these songs, which Fabri heard in Canada: “When the great Manitou descended to the earth, in order to satisfy himself that the creatures he had created were happy, he interrogated all the animals. The bison replied that he would be quite contented with his fate in the grassy meadows, where the grass reached his belly, if he were not also compelled to keep his eyes constantly turned towards the mountains to catch the first sight of the father of oxen, as he descended, with fury, to devour him and his companions.”
The Cheyenne Indians have a tradition that these great animals lived in former times, conjointly with a race of men whose size was proportionate to their own, but that the Great Being destroyed both by repeated strokes of his terrible thunderbolts.
The native Indians of Virginia had another legend. As these gigantic Elephants destroyed all other animals specially created to supply the wants of the Indians, God, the thunderer, destroyed them; a single one only succeeded in escaping. It was “the great male, which presented its head to the thunderbolts and shook them off as they fell; but being at length wounded in the side, he took to flight towards the great lakes, where he remains hidden to this day.” All these simple fictions prove, at least, that the Mastodon has lived upon the earth at some not very distant period. We shall see, in fact, that it was contemporaneous with the Mammoth, which, it is now supposed, may have been co-existent with the earlier races of mankind, or only preceded a little the appearance of man.
Buffon, as we have said, gave to this great fossil animal the name of the Elephant of the Ohio; it has also been called the Mammoth of the Ohio. In England it was received with astonishment. Dr. Hunter showed clearly enough, from the thigh-bone and the teeth, that it was no Elephant; but having heard of the existence of the Siberian Mammoth, he at once came to the conclusion that they were bones of that animal. He then declared the teeth to be carnivorous, and the idea of a carnivorous elephant became one of the wonders of the day. Cuvier at once dissipated the clouds of doubt which surrounded the subject, pointing out the osteological differences between the several species, and giving to the American animal the appropriate name of Mastodon (from μαστος, a teat, and οδους, a tooth), or teat-like-toothed animal.
Many bones of the Mastodon have been found in America since that time, but remains are rarely met with in Europe, except as fragments—as the portion of a jaw-bone discovered in the Red Crag near Norwich, which Professor Owen has named Mastodon angustidens. It was even thought, for a long time, with Cuvier, that the Mastodon belonged exclusively to the New World; but the discovery of many of the bones mixed with those of the Mammoth, (Elephas primigenius) has dispelled that opinion. Bones of Mastodon have been found in great numbers in the Val d’Arno. In 1858 a magnificent skeleton was discovered at Turin.
The form of the teeth of the Mastodon shows that it fed, like the Elephant, on the roots and succulent parts of vegetables; and this is confirmed by the curious discovery made in America by Barton. It lived, no doubt, on the banks of rivers and on moist and marshy lands. Besides the great Mastodon of which we have spoken, there existed a Mastodon one-third smaller than the Elephant, and which inhabited nearly all Europe.
There are some curious historical facts in connection with the remains of the Mastodon which ought not to be passed over in silence. On the 11th of January, 1613, the workmen in a sand-pit situated near the Castle of Chaumont, in Dauphiny, between the cities of Montricourt and Saint-Antoine, on the left bank of the Rhône, found some bones, many of which were broken up by them. These bones belonged to some great fossil Mammal, but the existence of such animals was at that time wholly unknown. Informed of the discovery, a country surgeon named Mazuyer purchased the bones, and gave out that he had himself discovered them in a tomb, thirty feet long by fifteen broad, built of bricks, upon which he found the inscription Teutobocchus Rex. He added that, in the same tomb, he found half a hundred medals bearing the effigy of Marius. This Teutobocchus was a barbarian king, who invaded Gaul at the head of the Cimbri, and who was vanquished near Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix in Provence) by Marius, who carried him to Rome to grace his triumphal procession. In the notice which he published in confirmation of this story, Mazuyer reminded the public that, according to the testimony of Roman authors, the head of the Teuton king exceeded in dimensions all the trophies borne upon the lances in the triumph. The skeleton which he exhibited was five-and-twenty feet in length and ten broad.
Mazuyer showed the skeleton of the pretended Teutobocchus in all the cities of France and Germany, and also to Louis XIII., who took great interest in contemplating this marvel. It gave rise to a long controversy, or rather an interminable dispute, in which the anatomist Riolan distinguished himself—arguing against Habicot, a physician, whose name is all but forgotten. Riolan attempted to prove that the bones of the pretended king were those of an Elephant. Numerous pamphlets were exchanged by the two adversaries, in support of their respective opinions. We learn also from Gassendi, that a Jesuit of Tournon, named Jacques Tissot, was the author of the notice published by Mazuyer. Gassendi also proves that the pretended medals of Marius were forgeries, on the ground that they bore Gothic characters. It seems very strange that these bones, which are still preserved in the cases of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where anybody may see them, should ever have been mistaken, for a single moment, for human remains. The skeleton of Teutobocchus remained at Bordeaux till 1832, when it was sent to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where M. de Blainville declared that it belonged to a Mastodon.
Fig. 166.—Skeleton of Mesopithecus.
The Apes made their appearance at this period. In the ossiferous beds of Sansan M. Lartet discovered the Dryopithecus, as well as Pithecus antiquus, but only in imperfect fragments. M. Albert Gaudry was more fortunate: in the Miocene rocks of Pikermi, in Greece, he discovered the entire skeleton of Mesopithecus, which we present here ([Fig. 166]), together with the same animal restored ([Fig. 167]). In its general organisation it resembles the dog-faced baboon or ape, a piece of information which has guided the artist in the restoration of the animal.
Fig. 167.—Mesopithecus restored. One-fifth natural size.
The seas of the Miocene period were inhabited by great numbers of beings altogether unknown in earlier formations; we may mention no less than ninety marine genera which appear here for the first time, and some of which have lived down to our epoch. Among these, the molluscous Gasteropods, such as Conus, Turbinella, Ranella, Murex ([Fig. 169]), and Dolium are the most abundant; with many Lamellibranchiata.
Fig. 168.—Cerithium plicatum.
Fig. 169.—Murex Turonensis.
Fig. 170.—Ostrea longirostris. One quarter natural size.
Living form.
The Foraminifera are also represented by new genera, among which are the Bolivina, Polystomella, and Dentritina.
XXIV.—Ideal Landscape of the Miocene Period.
Finally, the Crustaceans include the genera Pagurus (or the Hermit crabs); Astacus. (the lobster); and Portunus (or paddling crabs). Of the first, it is doubtful if any fossil species have been found; of the last, species have been discovered bearing some resemblance to Podophthalmus vigil, as P. Defrancii, which only differs from it in the absence of the sharp spines which terminate the lateral angles of the carapace in the former; while Portunus leucodon (Desmarest) bears some analogy to Lupea.
Fig. 171.—Podophthalmus vigil.
An ideal landscape of the Miocene period, which is given on the opposite page ([Plate XXIV.]), represents the Dinotherium lying in the marshy grass, the Rhinoceros, the Mastodon, and an Ape of great size, the Dryopithecus, hanging from the branches of a tree. The products of the vegetable kingdom are, for the greater part, analogous to those of the present time. They are remarkable for their abundance, and for their graceful and serried vegetation; and still remind us in some respects, of the vegetation of the Carboniferous period. It is, in fact, a continuation of the characteristics of that period, and from the same cause, namely, the submersion of land under marshy waters, which has given birth to a sort of coal which is often found in the Miocene formation, and which we call lignite. This imperfect coal does not quite resemble that of the Carboniferous, or true Coal-measure period, because it is of much more recent date, and because it has not been subjected to the same internal heat, accompanied by the same pressure of superincumbent strata, which produced the older coal-beds of the Primary epoch.
Fig. 172.—Lupea pelagica.
The lignites, which we find in the Miocene, as in the Eocene period, constitute, however, a combustible which is worked and utilised in many countries, especially in Germany, where it is made in many places to serve in place of coal. These beds sometimes attain a thickness of above twenty yards, but in the environs of Paris they form beds of a few inches only, which alternate with clays and sands. We cannot doubt that lignites, like true coal, are the remains of the buried forests of an ancient world; in fact, the substance of the woods of our forests, often in a state perfectly recognisable, is frequently found in the lignite beds; and the studies of modern botanists have demonstrated, that the species of which the lignites are formed, belong to a vegetation closely resembling that of Europe in the present day.
Another very curious substance is found with the lignite—yellow amber. It is the mineralised resin, which flowed from certain extinct pine-trees of the Tertiary epoch; the waves of the Baltic Sea, washing the amber out of the deposits of sand and clay in which it lies buried, this substance, being very little heavier than water, is thrown by the waves upon the shore. For ages the Baltic coast has supplied commerce with amber. The Phœnicians ascended its banks to collect this beautiful fossil resin, which is now chiefly found between Dantzic and Memel, where it is a government monopoly in the hands of contractors, who are protected by a law making it theft to gather or conceal it.
Amber,[91] while it has lost none of its former commercial value, is, besides, of much palæontological interest; fossil insects, and other extraneous bodies, are often found enclosed in the nodules, where they have been preserved in all their original colouring and integrity of form. As the poet says—
“The things themselves are neither rich nor rare,
The wonder’s how the devil they got there.”
The natural aromatic qualities of the amber combined with exclusion of air, &c., have embalmed them, and thus transmitted to our times the smaller beings and the most delicate organisms of earlier ages.
The Miocene rocks, of marine origin, are very imperfectly represented in the Paris basin, and their composition changes with the localities. They are divided into two groups of beds: 1. Molasse, or soft clay; 2. Faluns, or shelly marl.
In the Paris basin the Molasse presents, at its base, quartzose sands of great thickness, sometimes pure, sometimes a little argillaceous or micaceous. They include beds of sandstone (with some limestone), which are worked in the quarries of Fontainebleau, d’Orsay, and Montmorency, for paving-stone for the streets of Paris and the neighbouring towns. This last formation is altogether marine. To these sands and sandstones succeeds a fresh-water deposit, formed of a whitish and partly siliceous limestone, which forms the ground of the plateau of La Beauce, between the valleys of the Seine and the Loire: this is called the Calcaire de la Beauce. It is there mixed with a reddish and more or less sandy clay, containing small blocks of burrh-stone used for millstones, easily recognised by their yellow-ochreous colour, and the numerous cavities or hollows with which their texture is honeycombed.
This grit, or silex meulier, is much used in Paris for the arches of cellars, underground conduits, sewers, &c.
The Faluns in the Paris basin consist of divers beds formed of shells and Corals, almost entirely broken up. In many parts of the country, and especially in the environs of Tours and Bordeaux, they are dug out for manuring the land. To the Falun series belong the fresh-water marl, limestone, and sand, which composed the celebrated mound of Sansan, near Auch, in the Department of Gers, in which M. Lartet found a considerable number of bones of Turtles, Birds, and especially Mammals, such as Mastodon and Dinotherium, together with a species of long-armed ape, which he named Pithecus antiquus, from the circumstance of its affording the earliest instance of the discovery of the remains of the quadrumana, or monkey-tribe, in Europe. Isolated masses of Faluns occur, also, near the mouth of the Loire and to the south of Tours, and in Brittany.
Fig. 173.—Caryophylla cyathus.