170 GEOLOGY. 
| & 
building ; and amber is also found. The strata occur exclusively in 
patches known as basins, the London and Paris basins being the most 
important. ' 
Fossil Remains.—The remains are both numerous and amportant. Of 
plants, there are few marine specimens, as these were too tender to be 
preserved, We find, however, mosses, palms, ferns, leaves, fruits, 
seeds of ie kinds, and whole pods of pea-plants. We have real 
exogenous t with specimens of fine palm, cypress, and fir. 
The re. resemble or are identical with existing species, and the 
Tertiary System has been divided into periods according to the percentage 






of life-remains. We have corals, star-fish of the same species as those . 
existing, and the shells are very beautiful, finely preserved, and scarcely 
<listinguishable from those to be gathered on our present shores. 
Among the fishes, we find various species of the shark, ray, sturgeon, 
sword-fish ; and of fresh-water kinds, the perch and the carp. Among the 
reptiles there are the crocodile and alligator, and the turtle. Birds are 
numerous, one specimen found in the Paris basin being gigantic. Mammals 
are found of every existing order, amongst others the whale, elk, stag, 
antelope, camel, lama, tapir, hog, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, beaver, hare, 
squirrel, monkey, elephant, horse, tiger, and hundreds of others. So 
numerous are these remains in ‘some parts, that one rock in Norfolk is 
known as the Mammaliferous Crag. But the most remarkable of the 
ancient animals are the huge monsters whose skeletons, carefully recon- 
structed, may be seen in the British Museum, some of them above 10 feet 
| high, and 20 feet long. The 
most wonderful is the mam- 
moth, with two great tusks 
like an elephant. Others are 
the dinotherium! or ‘ fierce 
wild beast,’ the megatherium* 
or ‘great wild beast,’ and the 
mastodon. In different parts 
of the world, and in many 
Rig. 93,—Dinotherium. places in England, remark- 
ae able caves are found filled 
with bones of various animals in clay or sands, known as ‘ bone-caves.’ 
These caves have some of th n the dens of savage tigers and other 
brutes, the bones of their prey. being sti “found; some the abodes of 
different creatures at different. ‘times who have lived and died there ; 
while others have had their contents washed into them by floods. 
Scenery —During this a ‘shallow seas rolled under a genial sun, in 
ba ise 






_ 1From Greck déinos, terzible, and tharion, beast. 
: Ad P 
” i é‘ From Greek megas, great, and therion, beast. 
rm 
. a. 
