CENOZOIC TIME — TERTIARY. 921 



marine. The upper part of the Molasse, mostly marine, is Miocene. The 

 beds of (Euingen, on Lake Constance, affording Insects in fine preservation, 

 along with leaves and some Mammals, Birds, and other species, are of the 

 Upper Miocene. Among the noted CEningen fossils is the Homo diluvii testis 

 of Scheuchzer (1700), shown by Cuvier to be an aquatic Salamander. 



The Miocene has a thickness of 10,000 feet in northern Italy and the 

 Ligurian Alps, and extends southward. It occurs also in Sicily and Malta. 



The Marine Pliocene of Europe is mostly found along the sea border. 

 This is its position in eastern England, where it is called the Crag, in Bel- 

 gium, and on the French Mediterranean coasts ; but in Italy the beds spread 

 more widely along both sides of the Apennines, and in Sicily they have an 

 elevation in some places of 3000 feet. 



LIFE. 



Plants. — The higher plants were mainly Angiosperms, Conifers, and 

 Palms. 



The Isle of Sheppey is famous for its fossil fruits ; and among them are 

 those of several species of Palm, related to the Nipae of the Moluccus and 

 Philippine Islands, England in the Eocene having been a land of Palms. 

 In the Middle Eocene, in England, there were species of Fig, Cinnamon, 

 various Proteacem, etc., indicating a climate and flora much like that of India 

 and Australia. In the Tyrol, Eocene beds contain Palms ; nearly a third 

 of the plants were Australian in character, and a fifth were allied to plants 

 of tropical America. The Oligocene contains, in its lignitic beds, species of 

 Taxites, Gupressinoxylon, Sequoia, and affords elsewhere leaves of Laurus, 

 Cinnamomum, Magnolia, Sassafras, Quercus, with Palms of the genera Sabal, 

 Flabellaria, Phoenicites. In the Miocene, Palms were absent from England, 

 and the forests of Europe had lost their tropical character. It is remarkable 

 that a much larger proportion of species than now were of North American 

 type, showing that, while the Eocene vegetation of Europe was largely Aus- 

 tralian, the second or Miocene phase (including in part at least the Upper 

 Eocene of Lyell) was more like that of North America than now. In the 

 Pliocene, the Flora embraced the modern genera of Eose, Plum, Almond, 

 Myrtle, Acacia, Whortleberry. There were also species of the genera (now 

 unknown in Europe) of Taxodium, Comptonia, Liquidambar, Nyssa, Robinia, 

 GleditscJda, Cassia, Rhus, Juglans, Ceanothus, Celastriis, Liriodendrori, indicat- 

 ing that there was still a strong American character. Moreover, certain 

 genera, as that of the Oak (Quercus), which have numerous species in 

 America, had many in Pliocene Europe, but have few now. 



In Greenland, according to Heer, Eocene beds, named by him the JJnartok 

 series, occur on the shores of Disco Island, containing species of Magnolia, 

 Laurus, Juglans, Quercus, Sequoia (S. Langsdorjffi) ; and Miocene beds of 

 the Atanekerdluk series, that have afforded 187 species of plants, including 

 the same Sequoia, Glyptostrobus Europmus, Taxodium disticlium, Taxites 



