Fig. 154.
Paludina. Mayence.
That these Rhenish tertiary formations agree more nearly with the Upper Eocene deposits above enumerated, than with any others, I have no doubt, since I had the advantage of comparing (August, 1850), with the assistance of M. De Koninck of Liége, the fossils from Kleyn Spauwen, Boom, and other Limburg localities, with those from Mayence, Alzey, Weinheim, and other Rhenish strata. Among the common Belgian and Rhenish shells which are identical, I may mention Cassidaria depressa, Tritonium flandricum De Koninck, Cerithium tricinctum Nyst, Tornatella simulata, Rostellaria Sowerbyi, Nucula Deshaysiana, Corbula pisum, and Pectunculus terebratularis.
From these Upper Eocene deposits of the Rhine M. H. von Meyer has obtained a great number of characteristic fossil mammalia, such as Palæomæryx medius, Hyotherium Meissneri, Tapirus Helveticus, Anthracotherium Alsaticum, and others. The three first of these are species common to some of the lignite, or brown coal beds in Switzerland, commonly classed with the molasse, but of which the true age has not yet been distinctly made out.
The fossils of the sandy beds of Eppelsheim, comprising bones of the Deinotherium, Mastodon, and other quadrupeds, are regarded by H. von Meyer as belonging to a mammiferous fauna quite distinct from that of the Mayence basin, and they are probably referable to the Miocene period.
The upper freshwater strata (1. a, [p. 175.]), of the neighbourhood of Paris, stretch southwards from the valley of the Seine to that of the Loire, and in the last-mentioned region are seen to be older than the marine faluns, so that the perforating shells of the Miocene sea have sometimes bored the hard compact freshwater limestones; and fragments of the Upper Eocene rocks are found at Pontlevoy and elsewhere, which have been rolled in the bed of the Miocene sea.
Fig. 155.