23G PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DcC. 13, 



leaves of the same genus of tree on which they still live ; but the spe- 

 cies are distinct from those now prevailing. On this point I quote 

 the opinion of Professor Heer of Zurich. That zealous entomologist 

 assured me, that out of 120 species of Coleoptera, 40 species of Neu- 

 roptera and 80 species of Hj^menoptera (CO of the latter belonging 

 to Formica), he has not, after the most rigid microscopic comparisons, 

 been able to detect a single form, either aquatic or terrestrial, which 

 can be identified with species now living in any part of the globe. 

 Some of them, indeed, make close approaches to species now living in 

 America and the Mediterranean, including Algeria, and some genera 

 (at least six) are entirely new*. 



Professor Agassiz classes the fishes of (Eningen much in the same 

 category, and the same may be said of the numerous quadrupeds, 

 whether those so elaborately and well described by M. Herman von 

 Meyer, or the extinct form of the Viverridee named by Professor 

 Owen Galecyniis (Eningensis, or the " Fossil Viverrine Fox of (Enin- 

 gen-f ." Even in regard to the plants, it does not appear that any can 

 be identified with living forms ; for although M. Goppert has said 

 that he can discover no difference in one case between the cone of a 

 pine of (Eningen and the cone of the living Pinus sylvestris, he 

 admits that without further evidence as to the glands and leaves, no 

 proof can be obtained that it is not an extinct species. 



Such being the facts, how are we henceforward to classify with 

 certainty, tertiary deposits which have been formed on land, in relation 

 to those which have been accumulated in the sea ? In the latter, or 

 the marine Swiss molasse, we find that strata formed anterior to the 

 (Eningen deposit contain shells of the subapennine sera, many, or 

 some at all events, of which are now living in our seas J ; whilst the 

 land and fluviatile animals of posterior date are all distinct from those 

 now in existence. In reviewing the molasse and nagelflue as a whole, 

 the evidence, as far as it goes, teaches us, that the formation was in 

 many tracts almost entirely formed by rivers or in lakes ; whilst in 

 other parts, as near Berne and St. Gallen, there were powerful inter- 

 calations of deposits formed in bays of the sea. If then we consider 

 the whole as a connected series, and admit that in the lowest as well 

 as in the highest strata, and even up to the regenerated molasse and 

 marls of (Eningen, the land remains belong to extinct species, still we 



* Professor Heer's monograph of the fossil insects of (Eningen will, I doubt not, 

 interest all entomologists as well as geologists, by the knowledge it exhibits of 

 every analogy and comparison whicli can be set up between these fossils and the 

 living forms of insects. Professor Heer intends to describe in a subsequent work 

 the insects of Aix en Provence and other tracts. 



t The animal collected by myself, and described as a fox by Mantell, is now 

 named by Owen Galecynus GEningensis, or the " Fossil Viverrine Fox of (Eningen." 

 See Journal of the Geol. Soc. London, vol. iii. p. 55, with anatomical woodcuts. 



X I here conform to the more generally received opinion concerning pliocene 

 marine shells as advocated by Sir C. Lyell and M. Deshayes. M. Cantraine indeed 

 believes that nearly all the true pliocene or subapennine species are still living (see 

 Malacologie Mediterranienne et Littorale, Acad, de Bruxelles, tom. xii. des Mem. 

 1840). On the other hand, however, it is right to state, that M. Agassiz contends 

 that no animal having the exact form of a fossil tertiary mollusk is now living in 

 our seas. 



