276 GEOLOGY. 



In the eastern part of the continent, the geographic changes were 

 less considerable, though the Atlantic and Gulf regions seem 10 have 



emerged, transferring the coast-line to sonic such position as it lias 

 to-day. The island in northern Florida which came into existence 

 near the close of the Eocene was joined to the mainland at the end 

 of the Miocene, thus bringing the peninsula of Florida into existence. 

 The foregoing references of deformative movements to the close of 

 the Miocene are in harmony with prevailing classifications, but are not 

 in consonance with the principle of time-division previously set forth, 

 in which a dynamic movement is made the initiating event of a new 

 period. According to this principle, the deformative movements here 

 referred to the closing stage of the Miocene, should be transferred to 

 the opening stage of the Pliocene, or regarded as a transition to it. 



Foreign. 



Europe. — In Europe, the relations of sea and land were in general 

 much as in the Early Tertiary. The area of the sea was much restricted 

 in northern Europe, and perhaps more extended in the southern part 

 of the continent than it had been during the Oligocene. Non-marine 

 formations have much representation in this, as in most other post- 

 Paleozoic systems. Some of the non-marine formations are of brackish- 

 water origin, and some of fresh. 



The marine beds occur chiefly along the Atlantic and Mediterra- 

 nean coasts. At the north, there was a great bay in the northwestern 

 part of Germany, including most of Holland and a part of Belgium, 

 but the beds deposited in it are mostly buried under a heavy body 

 of glacial drift. Elsewhere in Germany, except at the extreme south, 

 the somewhat wide-spread Miocene deposits are of non-marine origin. 

 They include coal and tuff, besides the commoner clastic sediments. 

 In southern Germany (Alpine region), the Miocene Molasse (marine 

 below and non-marine above) overlies the Oligocene portion of the 

 same series (p. 250), and is continued into Switzerland. The oceanic 

 connection of the waters in which the marine beds were deposited 

 was to the south. Thick conglomerates (3900-5900 feet) of Early 

 and Middle Miocene age are found along the north base of the Alps 

 (Rigi). Their materials came in part from formations which are still 

 visible, but in part from formations which do not now appear at the 



