1848.] MURCHISON ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ALPS. 297 



point. Such terrestrial deposits, antecedent however to our own sera, 

 there form low hillocks of gravel and sand, including fragments of 

 the submarine volcanic rocks (4), and also a band of travertine. It 

 is in these accumulations that immerous remains of the quadrupeds 

 which inhabited primaeval Italy are found. Professor Ponzi has clearly- 

 distinguished* them from their congeners in the older period (3) or 

 upper strata of the Subapennines. In that preceding period the Ele- 

 phas prhni(jenius (Blum.), Hippopotamus major (Blum.), Rhino- 

 ceros Jeptorhinus (Cuv.), Equus fossilis and Cervus primigenius were 

 inhabitants of the adjacent Apennines, from which their bones, with 

 much pebbly detritus, were washed down into the adjacent estuaries 

 and bays of the sea, and mixed up with its dolphins and shells. 

 When the estuary formations had been raised into land and formed 

 the banks of the ancient or broad valley of the Tiber, other quadru- 

 peds appeared, and if the bones of the older period be found added 

 to more recent remains, the former are always in a rolled and water- 

 worn condition. 



Among the animals of the post-pliocene or quaternary deposits (5) 

 whose remains have been detected in such hillocks as those at Ponte 

 MoUe, are Ursus, Meles antediluvianuSy Felis brevirostris, Sus 

 scropha fossilis, Equus fossilis, E. asinus fossilis, Cervus primigenius ^ 

 Bos pinscus, Bos primigenius, with aquatic birds, frogs, eels, &c. 



From that epoch, so recent as respects geological history, but so 

 remote as respects man, we are ushered into our own aera by finding 

 in the more modern alluvia of the Tiber, but when that stream was 

 much broader (6), the remains of creatures, such as the Dama 

 Romana, the Ovis aries and Capra cegragus, which, though compa- 

 ratively recent and having disappeared from the peninsula, are in this 

 last deposit associated with the usual modern types, including the Bos 

 huhalus (Linn.), which shows that the Buffalo is indigenous in Italy. 



In reviewing the vibrations and changes of relation which the ter- 

 tiary deposits of Italy have undergone, it appears that though in 

 many districts there are dislocations which affect one group and not 

 another, there are, on the other hand, sufficient examples of transition 

 which unite them. In this manner we have seen instances where 

 true eocene, as proved by organic remains, passes up into miocene 

 beds equally upheaved and conformable to them (Bassano, Asolo) ; 

 whilst in the southern parts of Tuscany and in the north of the Papal 

 States remains are seen in masses, which though much less fossili- 

 ferous are presumed to be their equivalents. Some of the miocene 

 coal deposits of Tuscany follow all the flexures and dislocations of 

 the older rocks on which they rest. M. Coquand compares them 

 with those of Aix in Provence and other spots well known to him, 

 and finding that they contain the same characteristic plant, Palma- 

 cites Lamanonis, he has contended that they should even be classed 

 as eocene or with the gypseous beds of the Paris basin. In synchro- 

 nizing freshwater with marine deposits, where there is not a continuous 

 succession of many strata, there is always considerable difficulty ; but 



* See the Atti della ottava riunione degU Scienziati Italian! Geneva, pp. 679 

 et seq. 



