Notice of Active and Extinct Volcanos. 241 



" Carnivora— -two new species of Bear, three species of the 

 G. Felis like the Panther, one species of the Hyaena, one species 

 of Fox, one species of Otter, — -all of them new. 



" Besides the above, occur bones of Birds, and impressions of 

 Fish. 



" Drawings of these bones are announced as about to be pub- 

 lished by subscription." 



Speaking of another place, M. Daubeny says : — 



" A limit on the other hand is set to the age that can be assign- 

 ed to this volcanic breccia, by the circumstance of its being su- 

 perposed on strata, containing fresh water shells, and bones of 

 mammalia* similar to those of the basin of Paris. Hence the 

 eruptions to which the materials of this tuff owe their existence, 

 though anterior to the period at which the vallies were excava- 

 ted, must date from one subsequent to the formation of the ter- 

 tiary rocks found in that neighborhood." 



" Thus during the period immediately antecedent to that at 

 which man and other existing species of Mammalia first came 

 into being, at a time when the lower parts of the country were 

 still under water, but the higher had become peopled with va- 

 rious tribes of land animals, the neighborhood of the Puy ap- 

 pears to have been agitated by volcanos, which overspread the 

 country with their ejected materials, caused the destruction of 

 the animals that existed there, and according to M. Roux, ob- 

 structed the drainage of the district, and consequently raised the 

 waters to a still higher level than before. The ejected materi- 

 als, intermixed with fragments of older rocks washed down at 

 the same time from the neighboring high ground, were deposited 

 at the bottom of the water, forming the immense masses of tuff 

 which now cover the valley of Puy, and during the latter part 

 of the period occupied by this process, the same volcanic forces 

 elevated from the midst of the then existing lake the trachytic 

 rocks which constitute the ridge of Mont Mezen. 



" But besides these traces of volcanic action at a period an- 

 tecedent to the formation of the valleys, the neighborhood of 

 the Puy, no less than the province of the Vivarais which bounds 

 it on the south-east, exhibits also decided evidence of post-dilu- 

 vial eruptions having talcen place. 



" West of the town of Puy is a series of little volcanos, 

 amounting according to M. Bertrand Roux to more than a hun- 



* Cuvier has ascertained that they belong to the genus Paleotherium and 

 Anthracotherium ; the former contained in a gypseous deposit similar to that of 

 Montmartre ; the latter in a calcareous rock, in which were found fresh water 

 shells. The same bed inclosed bones of other Mammalia, and portions of the 

 shell of the Turtle. 



Vol. XIII.— No. 2. 6 



