Dr. Sandberger — The Upper Rhine Valley. 217 



bases of the Black Forest, Odenwald, the Vosges, and Haardt, as far 

 as the Hundsruck Taunus and Spessarts, completely changing the 

 previous contour. The banks of that inland sea, now the Mayence 

 Basin, are everywhere still visible. Banks of oysters, covered with 

 parasitical shells, corals, sea-acorns, heaped bones of the sea-cow, 

 numberless sharks' teeth, called in the Pfalz " birds' tongues," are to 

 be found near Delsberg and Lorrach, as also near Landau, Kreutznach, 

 Geisenheim, and Wellenfurchen, often extending for miles, and they 

 are also found in other places, such as Lahn and Hej)penheim. Rich, 

 however, as was the organic life developed in these seas (the number 

 of species belonging to the different divisions of the animal kingdom 

 hitherto found amounts to about 350), it cannot be compared with 

 what we now find in tropical seas. The number of forms which are 

 included in the European seas of the present day have markedly in- 

 creased, though large thick shells are more sparse, and reef-building 

 corals are entirely wanting. A part of this district did not remain 

 long covered by the sea. As gradually as it sank it rose again, passing 

 through all the stages from strongly saline brackish water to a 

 freshwater lake. The animal remains which are found in the strati- 

 fied beds of pure sea-sand and clay demonstrate this. First, the 

 Oysters, which had begun to return, though smaller in form, vanish, 

 followed by the Venei'idce and Cerithm; and only the tough Mussels, 

 which still held their place in the almost entirely nnfreshened parts 

 of the eastern sea, along with pure freshwater species, are found in the 

 upper beds of the Mayence Basin, in which myriads of the little marsh 

 shell Hydrobia are found in the Limestone everywhere seen on the 

 route from Mayence to Wiesbaden in the Salzbachthal. 



It is in this same Limestone, on the opposite side of the Ehine, 

 that the Vertebrate Fauna of Weissenau lies buried, the richness of 

 which is only excelled by a few places in southern Europe, such as 

 Pikermi near Athens, or Mount Leberon in the south of France. 

 Hornless Ruminants, Civet cats, and small Marsupials, as they ap- 

 peared in the early times, still existed in great numbers. Instead of 

 the PalcBotherium we find Tapirs, and now, but rarely, that slender 

 Hippotherium, whose dentition resembles the milk-teeth of the 

 Horse so strongly as to bespeak its embryonic type. Instead of the 

 Anthracotlierium, we still only find the Jlyotherium, a middle form 

 between the Brazilian Musk-swine and the Asiatic Bahirussa. A horn- 

 less Rhinoceros (Acerathei-iimi) was already common. The smaller 

 animal population, consisting of Martens, Moles, and Hamsters, 

 shows a leaning, not without significance, towards the existing forms 

 of the temperate zone. The constant progress in this direction is 

 all the more striking when one compares the inland shells of the 

 somewhat older limestone of Hochheim with those of Wiesbaden. 



Thus we find : — 



Species of tropical Tropical and sub-tropical. 



Asiatic type. America. Canary Isles. S. Europe. 



At Hochheim... 11 ... 16 ... 9 ... 21 

 At Wiesbaden.. 3 ... 3 ... 2 ... 17 



From thence downwards in time we cannot follow the sub- 



