356 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [April 8, 



if the majority of the Red Crag Mammaha are Miocene, that there 

 has been this selective admixture of species of long-termed " Mio- 

 cene" genera in the Crag, and why the exclusion of the strictly 

 characteristic genera ? 



Another view may be taken, that, as the Red Crag contains Fish 

 and Crustacean remains which have been inferred to have been 

 washed out of denuded Eocene deposits, so the Pliocene sea-bottom 

 of the Red Crag may have had Miocene mammalian remains washed 

 into it, thus causing an extraneous admixture among the Pliocene 

 mammalian fossils. But it may be asked in reply, where are the 

 Falunian deposits, in proximity with the Crag in England, from 

 which such a washing-in could have taken place ? And, if they 

 were transported from a distance, they ought to show marks of 

 abrasion from rolling, which, so far as my observation goes, are not 

 seen in a great many of the Red Crag Mammalia to which a Miocene 

 origin has been attributed. Many flattened pieces of bone, exhi- 

 biting a high vitreous polish, and bearing palpable marks of having 

 been long rolled in the sea among shingle, have unquestionably been 

 met with in the Crag ; but it does not necessarily follow that they 

 were all washed out of an older deposit. It is intelligible that the 

 eifect may have been produced by attrition caused by the waves of 

 the Crag-sea upon bones of animals of the same geological period. 



It now remains to consider how far the Cetacean fossils of the 

 Crag are in accordance vdth the inferred Pliocene character of the 

 Land Mammalia. Professor Owen has described " Cetotolites " of 

 five species of BaJcenidce from the Red Crag. He states (Brit. Foss. 

 Mam. p. 527), that they "appear to have been dislodged from a 

 subjacent Eocene deposit ; " and the same opinion is repeated in the 

 note appended to the " Conspectus " of British fossil species which 

 I have already cited. They are there arranged under the head of 

 Eocene, and excluded from the Miocene fossils. Cetacean remains 

 have been met with in abundance in the Pliocene deposits of Italy, 

 under circumstances which leave no doubt that they are of the same 

 age as the land-quadrupeds found associated with them. I have 

 already mentioned the case examined by myself, where the skeleton 

 of M. {Tetraloph.) Arve?'nensis, covered with marine incrustations, 

 was found in the " Panchina inferiore" of the lower Val d'Aruo near 

 Leghorn, associated with the entire skeleton of a whale referred by 

 the Italian naturalists to Physeter, and with Dolphin-remains. A still 

 more remarkable and conclusive instance is furnished bv the rich 

 and well-known deposit of Pliocene Mammalia investigated by Cor- 

 tesi in the Subapennine deposits near Piacenza. Monte Pulgnasco 

 is stated to attain an elevation of about 1 700 feet above the level of 

 the Adriatic *, and near it there are lower elevations, Monte Zago 

 and Delia Torazza. The upper beds in all three alike, to a great 

 depth, consist of reddish calcareous sands full of marine shells ; and 

 below these there are beds of blue clay (" Marna cerulea "), also 



* Cortesi, Saggio Geolog. 1819, p. 72. 



