THE OLIGOCKNK SKI; IKS 567 



From th<- Saimoisian of the Velay bones of Palaotherium, 

 Paloplotheriuin, and Entelodon liave been obtained. 



6. Italy and Dalmatia 



Parts of Southern Europe were covered by a more open sea 

 th;m that of the northern region ; it was, in fact, the Eocene Sea, 

 slialii)\vi'(l and made less extensive by a slow movement of upheaval. 

 Oligocene deposits reach a great thickness in Northern Italy, being 

 found in Liguria, around Turin, in the Vicentin, and along the 

 range of the Apennines, and they have been classified by Professor 

 Sacco in the following manner : '-' 5 



Stampian. Grey sandy marls with few fossils .... 2000 

 fSancly marls and sands with beds of conglomerate, 



Tonarian ' Nummulites Fichteli, N. intermedius, Natica crassa- 

 tina, Cyrena semistriata, and bones of Anthraco- 

 \ therium ......... 6000 



Sestian. Sandy marls with Num. Fichteli, Num. vascus, etc. . 60 



The lowest beds are conformable to the highest of the Eocene, 

 and the Stampian marls are succeeded by the Miocene. 



III. GEOGRAPHY AND SEDIMENTATION 



We have seen (pp. 524 and 535) that the Cretaceous period closed 

 with a general uplift of the whole European region, so that for a 

 long time sedimentation was restricted to a few bays or gulfs, 

 some dependent on the Southern Sea, and one reaching in from 

 the far north to Belgium and the Paris basin. 



There is some reason for thinking that the Atlantic Ocean 

 began to assume its present form in Eocene time, or at any rate 

 that its eastern trough between Europe and the medial sub-oceanic 

 ridge, from which the Azores rise as mountain-summits, came into 

 rxi.-tfiice at this epoch; and that the depression of this trough 

 was correlative with the uplift of the Western Franco-British 

 region, which was accompanied by such wonderful volcanic eruptions. 



After these early changes, however, a slow subsidence ensxied, and 

 the seas gradually spread their waters over larger spaces till about 

 tin- middle of the Eocene period, or in Lutetian time, these seas 

 had acquired their greatest extension. There was still land over 

 the greater part of France, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Scandi- 

 navia, but there was a large southern sea covering the Mediter- 

 ranean area, together with the most northern parts of Africa, and 

 stretching eastward through Asia Minor and Syria far into Asia 



