PLIOCENE FORMATIONS. <>J7 



basin, and those of Auvcrgne, are of the same age. 

 At all events, it is sufficient for our present purpose to 

 know that they are the result of actions which are iio\v 

 as general as they were when the plastic clay of Paris, 

 and its sulphate of lime, or the London clay, were slowly 

 deposited. 



As a general conclusion, we may decide that, at the 

 eocene period, existing continents were the sites of vast 

 lakes, rivers, and estuaries, and were inhabited by quad- 

 rupeds, which lived upon their thickly-wooded margins. 

 31 any remains, allied to those of the hippopotamus, have 

 been found in the subsidences of this period. 



Examples of the miocene or middle tertiary era are 

 to be found in Western France, over the whole of the 

 great valley of Switzerland, and the valley of the Danube. 

 In these deposits we find the bones of the rhinoceros, 

 elephant, hippopotamus, and the dinotherium, an extinct 

 animal, possessing many very distinguishing features.* 



The pliocene period has been termed the age of 

 elephants, and is most remarkable for the great mas- 

 todons and gigantic elks, with other animals not very 

 unlike those which are contemporaneous with man. 



In the superficial layers of the earth, the diluvium, 

 alluvium, peat and vegetable soil, we have a continuation 

 of the history of the mutations of our globe and of its 

 inhabitants, which has been here so briefly sketched. They 

 bring us up to the period when man appeared in the 

 w oiid, since whose creation it is evident no very exten- 

 sive change has been produced upon the surface. We 

 have viewed the phenomena of each great epoch, marked 

 as they are by new creations of organized beings, and it 

 would appear as if, through the whole series, from the 



* The Wonders of Geology : by Dr. Mftiitell, vol. i. p. 16:,'. 

 Rridrjewater Treatise : by Dr. Bnckland. Dr. J. J. Kemp, and 

 Dr. A. V. Klipsteiu, On the Dinotherium ; Darmstadt, 1830. 

 Cuvier arid De Blainville have also carefully described the fossil 

 remains of this animnl. 



