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On the Occurrence of Fossil Remains of Mammalia in the Coal 

 Formation of the Canton of Zurich. 



M. ScHiNTz, M. D., in August 1827, gave a general ac- 

 count to the Helvetic Society of Natural Science, of the fossil 

 remains of mammifera discovered in the coal mines of the Can- 

 ton of Zurich, and described the rocks in which the coal occurs. 

 Bones have already been found in five places in the Canton it- 

 self, or near its frontiers, viz. at Hopfnach, on the Lake of 

 Zurich ; at Elgg near Buchberg, in the Canton of Schaffhausen ; 

 near Seelmatten on the frontiers of Thurgau and near Sprei- 

 tenbach in Argau. A considerable quantity of the remains 

 of mammifera have been found at Kopfnach, in the course of the 

 last six years. They consist of two kinds of teeth of the 

 narrow-toothed mastodon, of which three fore-teeth, and one 

 from the bottom of the mouth, were presented to the Society ; 

 beavers teeth*, and those of two ruminating animals, of which 

 one is scarcely larger than the teeth of the small musk, and 

 another belongs to a species of deer, were also exhibited. The 

 whole country of Kopfnach belongs to the tertiary formation. 

 A regular series of sandstone, with limestone, containing much 

 clay, gives to the whole a marly and easily decomposable 

 property. This molasse formation occupies nearly the whole of 

 the great basin lying between the Alps and Jura, extending 

 about 100 miles in length from the Lake of Constance to the 

 Lake of Annecy, and from 10 to 30 in breadth, and presents 

 mountain chains from 1000 to 2000 feet high, and sometimes 

 1000 in breadth. Its depth may be about 3000 feet. It is in 

 tJiis formation that all the coal mines that are worked occur ; 

 and in these mines the animal remains have been found. 



In the coal mine of Elgg, which has been worked about forty 

 years, and of which the gallery is about 300 fathoms long, there 

 have been found fragments of another species of mastodon, 

 which does not correspond to any of those described by Cuvier, 

 and which has only a distant resemblance in form to the great 

 mastodon. The upper part of the gallery consists of a fine 

 granular breccia, the lower part or floor of a soft sandstone, con- 



• Is there not some mistake here ? — Edit. 

 JULY — SEPTEMBER 1828. S 



