ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. CVll 



than as members of the Miocene deposits. In the Alps, indeed, 

 MM. Hebert and Renevier had found the characteristic species of 

 the Fontainebleau sands, mixed in a large proportion with those of 

 the Sables Moyens, so that the two faunae must there have been 

 simultaneously existing in the same sea, confirming Deshayes' opinion 

 that the Fontainebleau sands are really the upper portion of the Paris 

 Basin beds ; an opinion further confirmed by the discovery of a num- 

 raulitic stratum in these Alpine deposits, which thus connects the 

 sands with the Eocene, so charged with Nummulites in the Paris 

 Basin, and separates them from the Miocene, in which hitherto these 

 fossils have not been found. These opinions of Deshayes seem 

 strongly to confirm the accuracy of Mr. Prestwich's views ; as the 

 Middle Eocene would naturally be terminated by the Sables Moyens 

 and Barton Clay, and the Fontainebleau sands would terminate the 

 Upper Eocene ; still leaving England without any representative of 

 the Miocene. 



It is unnecessary at this moment to go further into the details of 

 this work, and I shall therefore only remark that the wide separation 

 of the Fontainebleau sands from the Faluns de Touraine, though 

 they were once confounded together, is pointed out ; and that " the 

 great nummulitic" question is ably discussed, as well as that of a 

 supposed transition between the cretaceous and tertiary deposits. The 

 decision on the first is, that nummulites first came into existence 

 in the Eocene period, and are characteristic of that epoch through- 

 out the world ; and on the second, M. Deshayes observes, that 

 *' without hesitation he may still maintain his statement of 1831, that 

 no one species has been as yet proved to be common to the Creta- 

 ceous and to the Tertiary faunae ;" and, further, that there is a dif- 

 ference equally abrupt and absolute between the two florae. '* The 

 total extinction of all living creatures," he then goes on to say, ** at a 

 definite geological epoch, is certainly one of the most wonderful 

 phaenomena exhibited by the laws of creation, — the more remark- 

 able, in this instance, as the successive formations do not exhibit in 

 themselves any evidence of those convulsions which appear to have 

 at least accompanied the work of extinction at other epochs. How 

 much, too, must our astonishment be increased when, from the proof 

 set before us, we are called upon to recognize between the first 

 appearance of organized beings and the age of man no less than 

 five repetitions of the great phaenomena of Destruction and Re-cre- 

 ation !" 



These words show that M. Deshayes still adheres to the Cuvierian 

 doctrine of successive creations, whilst, however, he admits the ex- 

 treme difficulty of some of the specific determinations on which 

 this theory must mainly depend. It would, however, appear that M. 

 Deshayes is not insensible, at least, to the philosophic difficulty of 

 successive creations, in which species, though not absolutely re- 

 produced, are replaced by others so nearly the same as to indicate 

 almost a playful exercise of creative power, since in the following 

 passage he advocates only one exercise of creative will : "In spread- 

 ing over the surface of the earth organized beings, the all-power- 



