266 



THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



and other large sheets of increasingly fresh water, while brackish lagoons 

 are formed between Sicily and the Rhone valley. 



In the Congeria gravels of Austria, Callitris and the camphor trees 

 (C amphora) as well as the acacias (Acacia) have vanished, but the secjuoias 

 (Sequoia) and the l)amboos (Bambusa) continue. Beeches (Fagun) are 

 much more abundant than in the preceding stages.^ Greece at this period 

 is covered with rich pastures inhabited by enormous herds of ruminants 



Fig. 133. — Europe in Upper Miocene or Sarmatian (Vindobonian-Pontian) times. White = 

 land. Ruled = sea. Dotted areas = flood plains and lagoons. After de Lapparent, 1906. 



and odd-toed ungulates. In no less than forty localitii^, extending from 

 central Persia (Maragha) to western Portugal (Archino), the life of this 

 great Upper Miocene stage has become known. 



Typical deposits are those of the lake-bound ^gean region of Pikermi 

 (Fig. 134, 1) giving us the typical southern fauna of the period, closely 

 similar to that of the Isle of Samos (2) in the J<]gean Sea, and Maragha. 

 In Austria-Hungary are the beds of Baltavar (9). In Germany we get a 

 glimpse of the more northerly mammals in the river gravels of Eppelsheim 

 (40) near Darmstadt. The fauna of southwestern Europe is revealed in 

 the deposits of Mont Leberon in Vaucluse (14), in the volcanic ash beds 

 of Puy Courny (17) (Cantal), while further southwest are the deposits of 

 Concud (31) in eastern Spain and Archino (32) in western Portugal. 



It should be said that there is a difference of opinion as to the geologic 

 epoch in which this fauna belongs, that the German geologist Lepsius^ 



1 De Saporta, G., Le Monde des Plantes avant I'Apparition de THomme, Paris, 1879, 

 p. 375. 



^ Lepsius, R., Geologie von Deutschland und den angrenzenden Gebieten, Pt. I, Stutt- 

 gart, 1887-1892, p. 637. 



