46 S Notices of Memoirs — 



Lophiodon and tlie Bliinoceros ; thus tlie Mollusca have had a less 

 lougevity than we at first thought, and the Mammalia have had a 

 greater longevity than we had supposed. 



Nevertheless, M. Gaudry is unwilling to admit that variability of 

 the types of the Mollusca has been equal to that of the Mammalia. 

 MM. Darwin and Lyell have long since made this remark, and 

 M. Gaudry has had occasion to confirm the greater longevity ' of the 

 lower as compared with the higher forms of animals, from his re- 

 searches in Greece and Mont Leberon, and he shows that the 

 Mollusca have a longer duration in time than the Mammalia, and 

 that the beds at Cabrieres, containing among others 15 species of 

 living marine shells, are inferior (stratigraphically) to the bone 

 deposit of Leberon, where the Mammalian remains either present 

 some differences to existing species, or belong to entirely extinct 

 genera, as the MacJiairodus, Ictitherium, Dinotheriwm, Ace/rotlierium, 

 Hipparion, JSelladotherivm and Tragooerus. 



m. — From the study of the different Mammalia, and their dis- 

 tribution at Eppelsheim, Leberon, and Pikermi, M. Gaudry considers 

 that the Upper Miocene may be divided into two zones, and that the 

 deposit at Eppelsheim is not of the same age as the last two ; but 

 the solution of this question is not without difficulty. At first some 

 reasons favour the idea that the Eppelsheim deposit is more recent 

 than those of Pikermi and Leberon ; for the wild boars of Eppels- 

 heim differ less from the living species ; the Mastodon Pentelici of 

 Greece seems to be intermediate between the M. angustidens of Sansan 

 and the M. longirostris of Eppelsheim ; the Leptodon of Pikermi, of 

 the PalcBOtlierium type, is not found at Eppelsheim ; the Tapir of 

 Eppelsheim, which has not occurred at Leberon or the three other 

 localities of the same age, has a greater resemblance to the Pliocene 

 species of France ; the large tortoise, appearing to indicate a very 

 warm epoch, has not been observed at Eppelsheim. Nevertheless 

 on the whole the proofs are more numerous whic^h infer the deposit 

 at Eppelsheim to be the more ancient. Thus, there are traces of the 

 great Ape at Eppelsheim as at Sansan .; the ape of Pikermi does not 

 resemble that of Sansan, but that of the Pliocene marls of Montpelier 

 and the living apes. The Hysenas are found at Leberon, Concud, 

 Baltavar, and Pikermi, but not at Eppelsheim ; it is a recent type 

 \inknown in the Middle Miocene. The Simocyon of Eppelsheim has 

 persistent premolars, in that of Pikermi they are in part deciduous. 



^ If, by longevity of forms, is understood, not the life of the individual, but the 

 lifetime of the race, it seems hardly possible in some instances to comprehend the 

 vast periods of time which a marine species may have existed, especially among 

 the Mollusca. Liiigulce, differing but little from the living species, occur in the 

 Cambrian rocks of Wales. Terebratida Jlmhria, of the Inferior Oolite, might 

 {externally) piiss f )r the living IFaldheimia Australis. The King-crabs {Liniuli) 

 of the Solenhofen stone can hardly be said to differ from those of the China seas of 

 to-day ! Prof. Owen long since pointed out that the chance of sm-vival among land 

 animals was in inverse proportion to their bulk ; the largest being always the first to 

 suffer by droughts and all the other causes which affect terrestrial existence, but 

 which are unfelt by and unknown to the fauna of the sea. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



