280 MR. R. B. NEWTOE ON FOSSILS FROM [Allg. T904, 



in the foregoing lists, the writer desires gratefully to acknowledge 

 the assistance given to him bv his colleague at the British Museum, 

 Mr. Edgar Smith, I.S.O. 



Pliocene (Sicilian). 



The Pliocene shells of this collection, chiefly obtained from the 

 Gallipoli Conglomerate, are of lacustrine habit and bear the Caspian 

 facies. Admiral Spratt l was one of the earliest geologists to call 

 attention to the lacustrine or freshwater deposits skirting the 

 margins of the Grecian Archipelago, the Sea of Marmora, and the 

 Black Sea, all of which he thought were indications of the former 

 existence of an * Oriental Lake ' extending over those areas to the 

 Sea of Azov. Two of the more frequent shells found in the Marmora 

 beds resembled a Mytilus and a Cardium, and were long recognized 

 as marine forms ; but, on examining the fauna of Lakes Kattabug 

 and Yalpuk, Spratt ascertained that the so-called Cardium{= Didacna) 

 was living there in fresh water, and differed from the marine genus 

 in having two syphons. He had also recognized the same shell in 

 the Kertch deposits and in the Gallipoli Conglomerate, where it 

 was associated with the 3Ii/tilus-\ike shell, or Dreissensia of modern 

 conchologists ; hence he concluded that these freshwater mollusca 

 belonged to his great ' Oriental Lake-Period.' 



In the British Museum (Natural History) are some excellent 

 examples of this Cardium -like shell, now determined as Didacna 

 crassa, a species originally described by Eichwald from the Caspian 

 Sea. These specimens, forming part of Admiral Spratt's collection, 

 were obtained from sandy marls underlying red, earthy drift-deposits 

 at Babel, on the eastern coast of Yalpuk Lake (Bessarabia), and 

 were presented by Col. F. T. X. Spratt-Bowring, R.E., in 1892. 



Prof. Andrussov,- who has studied the fauna of the Gallipoli 

 Conglomerate, regards it as of Upper Pliocene age, aud synchronizes 

 it with the Tschauda Beds of the Kertch Peninsula, since both 

 deposits contain Didacna erassa, Eichwald 3 (PI. XXIV, figs. 1 & 2), 

 Dreissensia polyrnorpha, Pallas (PI. XXIY, fig. 3), and Dr. Tschaudce, 

 Andrussov (PI. XXIY, fig. 4). 



Besides these shells from the Gallipoli Conglomerate, the present 

 collection contains examples of a nearly-identical conglomerate from 

 Hora, 130 feet above sea-level, exhibiting lacustrine conditions. 

 Although Dreissensia Tschaudce is not identifiable in this rock, the 

 other two lamellibranchs are recognized, besides Neritina fluviatilis 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiii (1857) pp. 72-83; ibid. vol. xiv (1858) 

 pp. 203-19 ; & ibid. vol. xvi (1860) pp. 281-92. 



2 See ' Environs de Kertch ' Guide des Excursions du YII eme Congres Geol. 

 Intern. (St. Petersburg. 1897) no. xxx. 



3 Didacna crassa is recorded as occurring still farther eastward, in the 

 district of the Caucasus between Cape Bailor and Baku, by Prof. N. I. Lebedev. 

 in Dr. Gustav Radde's ' Die Sammlungen des Kaukasischen Museums' vol. iii 

 (1901) p. 160 & pi. iv, figs. 713 a-b. 



