256 



THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



Anthropoid apes (Dryopithecus) , related to the chimpanzees, 



from Eurasia. 

 Hystricomorph rodents (Hystrix), related to the porcupines, from 



Africa. 



The mammals of the Vindobonian stage, as listed in Deperet's epoch- 

 making work,' show a grand geographic extension from western Portugal 

 to the northern shores of the Caspian Sea, recorded in no less than sixty- 



FiG. 128. — Europe in Middle Miocene or Vindobonian times. Dotted areas = lagoons. 

 White = land. Ruled = sea. After de Lapparent, 1906. 



eight fossil-bearing localities. The sirenian of the Middle Miocene is 

 Metaxytheriu7n.^ 



Physiography. — The Vindobonian, according to de Lapparent,^ marks 

 the beginning of the formation of the Alps and of the Himalayas; the Med- 

 iterranean Sea shrinks, and in its eastern part, which extended to the 

 heart of Persia, is converted into land. The grand subdivisions of the 

 Middle Miocene are those indicated by the coastal changes of southern 

 Europe accompanied by successive and sharply defined deposition stages, 

 with which the continental deposits of France, Austria, SAvitzerland, and 

 Bavaria are broadly paralleled by Deperet as follows: 



> Dep6ret, C, L'evolution des Mammif^res tertiaires (Miocene). C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 

 Vol. CXLIII, sea. Dec. 24, 1906, pp. 1121-1122. 



^ Abel, O., Die Sirenen der mediterranen Tertiilrbildungen Osterreichs, 1904, p. 215. 

 ' De Lapparent, Traite de Geologic, 1906, p. 160G. 



