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VIDE 

 ffKR- 



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JEEA 

 CHS. 



history 



Eocene 



our re- 



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a 



tell)' 





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Ch. XL] 



WARMTH IMPLIED BY FOSSILS OF THE CHALK. 



213 



tlie order of their higher antiquity, afforded us evidence of 

 a temperature continually increasing in proportion as we 

 receded farther from the Glacial epoch. If, in certain locali- 

 ties in or near the Alps, some huge transported fragments of 

 rock, enclosed in miocene and eocene conglomerates, seemed 

 to requ ire the aid of ice to bring them into the sites they 

 now occupy, a local combination of geographical circumstances 

 ma y perhaps be conceived, which might account for such 

 exceptional cases without requiring a general refrigeration of 



climate at the times alluded to. 



Warm climate implied by the fossils of the Chalk. 

 When we pass beyond the gap which divides the Tertiary 

 from the Secondary formations, we observe in the cretaceous 



climate similar to those previously 



warm 



derived from tertiary plants, shells, corals, and reptiles. 

 Many of the principal members of this cretaceous series have 

 been traced from the 57th degree of latitude in the north- 

 ern hemisphere to districts which approach within 10 or 12 



m 



Trichinopoly. In these countr 



many 



ts occur, which by 

 were identified by 



the late Edward Forbes 



S 



some 



immediately 



In 



formations 



some 



Oliva, Triton, Pyrula, Nerita, and Voli 

 forms now characterising tropical seas, 

 only made their first appearance in European latitudes in the 

 uppermost or Maestricht chalk. The geographical birth- 

 place, 



seems 



in the tropics before the Tertiary period, during which last 



they made a great figure in Europe throughout Eocene and 



again southwards in the Ne^ 



times 



Plioce 



ne 



era, when the cold of the approaching Glacial 



make 



s formation 

 affinity with 



* See Report on Fossils collected by ton, Quart. Geol. Journ,, 1845, vol. i. 



C. J, Kaye, Esq. and Rev, W. H. Eger- p. 79. 



