Eocene period." The Eocene strata. Professor Ramsay thinks, extended in their day much further west, " because," he says, " here, at the extreme edge of the chalk escarpments, you find outlying fragments of them," from which he argues that they were originally deposited all over the Chalk as far as these points, but being formed of soft strata they were " denuded " backwards.

The Beloptera represented in Fig. 195 are curious Belemnite-like organisms, occurring in Tertiary strata, and evidently the internal bone of a Cephalopod, having a wing-like projection or process on each side. As a genus it holds a place interm^ediate between the Cuttle-fish and tlfe Belemnite.

Fig- 157- — Cerithium telescopium. (Li'ing form.)

33^

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;* 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, Combretacese (Terminalia), with the grand Leguminales of warm countries (as Phaseolitcs^ E7-ythrinay Bajihinia, Mimosites, Acacia) \ Apocyneae analogous to the genera of our tropical regions; a Rubiacea altogether tropical {Stcinhaicerci} 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 Algae 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 Flabcllaria^ with the fine P/icenicites, which we see now for the first time, gave animation to the landscape. Among the Conifers some new genera appear; among them we distinguish Podocarpeiis^ a southern form of vegetation of the present age. Almost all the arborescent families have their representatives in the

Quarterly Journal of Ccol. Soc.y voL vii,, p. 89.

337

THE MIOCENE PERIOD.

forests of this period, where for the first time types so different are united. The waters are covered with NyvipJicea Arithjicea (Brongniart); and with Myriophyllites capillifolius (Unger); Cubnites aiii-inalis (Brongniart); and C. Gcepperti {ybinstQr), spring up in profusion upon their banks, and the grand Bambicsinites 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 zizioidcs. 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 Smilacitcs 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 Combretaceae, to the Leguminales, and to the tropical Rubiacece. 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 Switzeriand. 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 Helvetise." 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 w

THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

338 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.

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 Qiningen, in the Rhine valley, where, according to Sir Roderick Murchison, it _ __^ ^, _ ranges ten miles east and west

,grtr^^ **^_5^v?'^^^^ from Berlingen, on the right ^9^" '^^^m'^' ^^^ (Eningen,bank, to nearWaugenStein, andon theto left bank. In this formation Professor Heer enumerates twenty-one beds. No. i, 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 {Potamogeto?i). No. 3, bituminous rock, with — astodon angiistidais. No. 5, two or three inches thick, containing fossil Fishes. No. 9, the stone in which the skeleton of the great Salamander

Fig. 158.— Andrias Schcuchzeri. Andrias Schei/chze?'i {¥\g. 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 (Eningen, Galacymis (En'mgensis (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 Pithccus aiitiquns and Mesopithcciis; the Bats, Dogs, and Coati inhabited Brazil and Guiana; the Rats North America; the Genettes, the Marmots, the Squirrels, and Opossums having some aftinity 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 Dinothcrium (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 timew that2 such

THE WORLD BEFORE THE DELUGE.

340 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

Fig. 159.— Dinotherium.

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.

This colossus of the ancient world, respecting which there has been so much argument, somewhat approaches the Mastodon; it

THE MIOCENE PERIOD.

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 341presently. 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 Uwhs, terrible^ e-fipiov, atwnal). 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

Fi:T. i6r.— Teeth of Mastodon.

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 Nymphcea, 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).

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