340 



ON TWO MIOCENE GASTROPODS FEOM ROUMANIA. 



By E. BuiLEN Newton, F.G.S., etc. 



Read \^th June, 1905. 



The Gastropod shells referred to in this paper were ohtained \)j 

 Lieut. -Colonel Thomas English, F.G.S., from the neighbourhood of 

 Bustenari (Province of Prahova), a place twelve miles north of Ploesci 

 in Eoumania. Both specimens are of Miocene Tertiary age, but 

 belong to different divisions of that period. The older represents 

 a new species of the marine genus Septa, and may be referred to the 

 Tortonian stage ; the younger is an example of the peculiar shell 

 Valenciennesia, which is characteristic of the fresh- and brackish-water 

 deposits forming the uppermost part of the Miocene formation, and 

 known as the Poutian Series, the fauna of which is analogous to that 

 existing at the present day in the saline waters of Lake Aral and the 

 Caspian Sea. 



The geology of this part of Eoumania has been mainly studied by 

 Coquand,^ Pilide,^ Andrussow,^ and Sabba Stefanescu* ; the most 

 ancient fossiliferous rocks being apparently of Eocene age, are succeeded 

 by Oligocene and the various members of the Miocene period, with the 

 exception of the Burdigalian beds, which are not present in this 

 immediate area of the country. 



In tabular order, from the youngest group of beds downwards, the 

 stratigraphical sequence is as follows : — 



r Poutian ... ... Fluvio-lacustrine. 



Sarmatian Flu\-io-lacusti-ine, with alter- 

 nations of marine beds. 



Miocene. 



Tertiary. ^ 



Tortonian (Leithakalk) "| 



Helvetian J- Marine. 



.Burdigalian (absent) j 

 Oligocene. Marine and Lacustrine beds. 

 Eocene. Nummulitic ... Marine. 



It is satisfactory to note that Colonel English has presented these 

 specimens to the Geological Department of the British Museum. 



Septa Englishi, n.sp. 

 Specimen massive, ventricose ; whorls inflated, deep, irregular, 

 descending obliquely from suture, subangulate posteriorly ; orna- 

 mentation consisting of two distant rows of large, rounded, sometimes 



1 H. Coquand, " Sur les Gites de petrole de la Valachie et de la Moldavie, et sur 



Page des terrains qui les contienuent " : Bull. Soc. geol. France, ser. ii, vol. xxiv 

 (1867), pp. 605-569. 



2 C. D. Pilide, "Sur le Bassin Neogene de la region situee an nord de Ploesci 



(Valachie) ": Bull. Soc. geol. France, ser. iii, vol. vi (1878), pp. 22-31. _ 

 ^ N. Andrussow, ' ' Kurze Bemerkungeu iiber einige Neogenablagerungen Rumaniens ": 



Verhandl. k.k. Geol. Reichs., 1895, pp. 189-197. 

 ^ S. Stefanescu : " E'tudes sur les Terrains tertiaires de Roumanie (These)," Lille, 



1897, pp. 178, with geological map. 



