CHAP. XXII. FOSSILS OP OENINGHEN. 431 



Miocene Flants and Insects related to recent Species. 



Geologists were acquainted with about three hundred species 

 of marine shells from the "Falunian" strata on the banks of 

 the Loire, before they knew any thing of the contemporary 

 insects and plants. At length, as if to warn us against infer- 

 ring from negative evidence the poverty of any ancient set 

 of strata in organic remains proper to the land, a rich flora 

 and entomological fauna was suddenly revealed to us charac- 

 teristic of Central Europe during the Upper Miocene period. 

 This result followed the determination of the true position of 

 the Oeninghen beds in Switzerland, and of certain formations 

 of '^ Brown Coal" in Germany. 



Professor Heer, who has described nearly five hundred 

 species of fossil plants from Oeninghen, besides many more 

 from other Miocene localities in Switzerland,* estimates the 

 phenogamous species, which must have flourished in Central 

 Europe at that time, at 3000, and the insects as having been 

 more numerous in the same proportion as they now exceed 

 the plants in all latitudes. This European Miocene flora 

 was remarkable for the preponderance of arborescent and 

 shrubby evergreens, and comprised many generic tj^pes no 

 longer associated together in any existing flora or geo- 

 graphical province. Some genera, for example, which are at 

 present restricted to America, coexisted in Switzerland with 

 forms now peculiar to Asia, and with others at present con- 

 fined to Australia. 



Professor Heer has not ventured to identify any of this 

 vast assemblage of Miocene plants and insects with living 

 species, so far at least as to assign to them the same specific 

 names, but he presents us with a list of what he terms homo- 



* Heer, Flora tertiaria Helvetite, 1859 ; and Gaudin's French translation, with 

 additions, 1861. 



