338 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



inland as far as Berat. It occupies, in fact, a roughly 

 triangular area where the higher mountain chains recede a 

 little from the coast. The whole of this basin has been 

 referred by Coquand to the Pliocene. The lower beds 

 consist of bluish clay, and the upper mainly of sands and 

 conglomerates with Janira jacobaea, etc. Simonelli (34) 

 has recently examined the fossils which come from a sand 

 near Selenitza (evidently belonging to the upper series), 

 and his list confirms Coquand's views. Excepting Pota- 

 mides pictum, which is a Sarmatian form, all the fossils are 

 common Mediterranean Pliocene forms ; and they indicate 

 deposition in brackish water. 



QUATERNARY. 



Concerning the post-pliocene deposits there is but little 

 to say. Wahnschaffe (40) describes the occurrence, near 

 Berlin, of a Paludina bed l below the lower boulder clay, 

 made up largely of Paludina diluviana. This species now 

 lives in the lower part of the Danube in Dobrudscha and 

 it has been found as an erratic in the lower boulder clay 

 of Germany. Its presence there was difficult to explain 

 until it was shown that it had lived in that country before 

 the glacial period. 



In the province of Basilicata, in the South of Italy, 

 Lorenzo (21) notes the existence of morainis on the moun- 

 tains of the Sireno group, showing that the cold of the 

 glacial period was felt even as far south as this. 



Remains of the pre-historic period in France have been 

 noted by Tardy (37) at Maz d'Azil in the department of 

 Ariege and by Givod and Massenat (15) in the valley of 

 the Vezere in Dordogne. 



LITERATURE. 



1. Andrews, W. R., and A. J. Jukes-Browne. The Purbeck 

 Beds of the Vale of Wardour. Quart. Journ. Geo/. Soc, vol. 

 1. (1894), pp. 44-69. 



1 This has already been noted by Berendt, Zeitschr. Deutsch. Geo. 

 Ges., xxxiv. (1882), p. 453, and Gottsche, ibid., xxxviii. (1886), p. 470. 



