ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. CXvii 



these remains are not the same in the two deposits, the Anthra- 

 cotherium magnum characterizing the molasse with hgnites, whilst 

 the grey molasse has produced the PalcBomeryx Scheuchzeri and 

 P. miiioVy Rhijioceros incisivus, Mastodon angustidens, Ilypotherimn 

 Meissneri, Microtherium lienggeri, the remains of which still con- 

 tinue to be found in the overlying marine molasse. This change in 

 the fauna is ascribed entirely to the change in the physical deposits ; 

 the lignites being apparently the product of marsh vegetation, and 

 the Anthracotherium the natural inhabitant of a marshy region 

 which would be unfitted for the residence of the R/iinoceros and 

 FaJceomeryx. The flora of the molasse with lignites differs as 

 greatly from that of the grey molasse ; and this difference is equally 

 explicable, in the opinion of M. Pictet, by the more marshy character 

 of the soil in which the species of the lignite beds had lived. These 

 deposits are classed with the lower miocene. The freshwater marls 

 of Chaux de Fonds, the marine molasse of Mont de la Moliere, and 

 the molasse of the north-east of Switzerland are classed together as 

 the upper portion of the m^iocene. In the marl deposits of Chaux 

 de Fonds the remains of the Chelonians are associated with those of 

 the Dinotherium (jiganteum, of Stags either of the group Palceojneryx 

 or Dicrocerns, of a Rhinoceros, of a Mastodon, of Lophiochoerus 

 Blainvillei, of Tapirotherium Larteti and T. Blainvillei, and of some 

 other mammals, indicating a fauna of great interest, the terrestrial 

 range of which must have been far more extensive than the narrow 

 limits of the deposits in which these relics have been found. 



The celebrated freshwater calcareous deposits of (Eningen, in 

 which Murchison has recognized eleven distinct beds, Karg twenty- 

 one, and Tschudi seventeen, are considered by MM. Pictet and 

 Humbert as the most recent of the formations, and classed with the 

 pliocene. 



In addition to some indeterminable fragments, MM. Pictet and 

 Humbert have distinguished and described 10 new species of Chelo- 

 nians, making the total number of known Swdss species 28. But in 

 addition to the interest which must attach to the discovery of so 

 many new^ species, is that derived from the local character of each 

 species ; for example, the Testudo Escheri, Pictet and Humbert, 

 appears to have ranged over the whole of the north-east of Switzer- 

 land at the end of the miocene epoch, having been found at four 

 different localities within that area, but not beyond it. The Emys 

 Wyttenhachii, Bourdet, a small Emys from Griisisberg, and two 

 species of Emys from the molasse of Argovia, described by Her- 

 mann von Meyer as E. Gesneri and E. Fleischeri, are, it will be ob- 

 served, equally restricted in their habitats, so far as the present 

 knowledge of the subject enables us to judge. 



The freshwater marls of Chaux de Fonds have produced many 

 fragments of Chelonians, though generally in imperfect condition. 

 H. von Meyer had considered these fragments sufficient for at least the 

 recognition of six species, but M. Pictet having the same materials 

 before him considers all reducible to one species, which he terms Emys 

 Nicolei, Pictet and Humbert thus, it will be observed, preserve a 



