FOSSIL INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 455 



Were it otherwise, we should be obhged to withdraw our as- 

 sent from the fine observation of the Baron, on the ever- 

 increasing analogy which subsists between the beings which 

 exist at the present day, and those which are to be met with 

 in the strata, in proportion as they are more recent. 



The falunieres * of Orglandes and Hauteville contain a 

 great number of genera, which are found at present in the 

 living state, and which have no analogy with the fossils of the 

 chalk, nor with those which are more ancient. If the last, 

 which contain ammonites and belemnites, was more recent 

 than the falunieres, how could it happen that the shells of 

 these genera are never to be met with in the falunieres, since 

 it is only in the chalk that they have disappeared ? There 

 appears, on the contrary, every reason to conclude, that the 

 debris of beings contained in the falunieres are of an epoch 

 more recent than the chalk. 



We know not what would happen if some genera of animals 

 existing at the present day became extinct — but we may well 

 imagine that that would be a very remarkable era for fish and 

 insects, in which they ceased to be devoured by sharks and 



* In the province of Touraine, in France, they give the name of falun 

 to a loose sandy stratum, composed principally of the debris of shells, 

 which, in consequence of its nature and easy disaggregation, is employed 

 as marie or manure. It is considered by the French geologists to belong 

 to the formation of the lower layers of the coarse limestone, or that with 

 cerithia, of the neighbourhood of Paris. Falunieres, accordingly, is the 

 name given to strata composed of shells and other marine bodies, broken 

 in part, and in which there is Uttle cohesion, such as those of Touraine, 

 which are of very great extent ; those of Hauteville, above-mentioned, 

 of Grignon, in the department of the Seine and Oise, of Courtagnon, de- 

 partment of the Marne, and some other localities. These falunieres 

 depend, as we said before, on the coarse marine limestone formation, and 

 not on more ancient strata. Some of them, such as those of Touraine, 

 which are composed only of debris, the angles of which are worn down, 

 appear to have been exposed on some shore to the action of the waves. 

 But, in all the others, the most fragile things are often preserved entire, 

 and the angles of the broken bodies are very sharp. This seems to prove 

 that the last- mentioned strata were placed in different circumstances from 

 those of Touraine. 



