

TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES 



GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



New Considerations on the Palceontology o/Auvergne. 

 By A. PoMEL. 



[Abridged from the * Bulletin de la Societe Geologique de France,' 2® serie, 

 t. iii. p. 198.] 



The author commences with a summary of the labours of geologists 

 who have described the fossil remains so abundantly scattered over 

 Auvergne, from M. Bravard their first discoverer, to M. Croizet and 

 M. Bertrand deDoue, whose works appeared previous to 1841. Up 

 to that period, the fossiliferous beds of Limagne had been considered 

 to belong to two epochs : 1st, the older lacustrine sedimentary beds ; 

 and, 2ndly, the more recent alluvial beds, consisting in some places 

 of volcanic debris, wherein fossils were first discovered in this country. 

 He then shows that this classification is incomplete with regard to 

 the second epoch ; and proposes his own, which he has arrived at after 

 devoting several years to the study of the different localities which 

 have furnished remains of vertebrated animals, often accompanied by 

 M. Bravard and aided by his suggestions. 



I. The more ancient division, comprising in one fauna all the 

 species of the lacustrine beds of Velay and Auvergne, has all the 

 characters of a Miocene deposit ; a view of the subject according with 

 the observations of M. Elie de Beaumont on the lines of dislocation, 

 which had induced that geologist to refer these beds to the same epoch 

 as those of the Loire and Beauce. 



II. The second, which comprises the species buried in volcanic 

 alluvium beneath the pumiceous conglomerates of Mont Perrier, is 

 unquestionably a Pliocene fauna, as proved by the analogy, and even 

 the perfect resemblance of the greater number of species to those of 

 the subapennine beds of Tuscany. M. Rozet has independently 

 arrived at the conclusion, that the basaltic phsenomena of Auvergne 

 were immediately connected and synchronous with the upheaval of 

 the Alps in the chain of the Valois in Austria ; which dislocation, as 

 demonstrated by M. Elie de Beaumont, put an end to the subapen- 



VOL. III. PART II. G 



