Cn. XIII.] NEWER PLIOCENE BEDS OF ISCHIA. 1§9 



reader must bear in mind that the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Plio- 

 cene were originally invented with reference purely to conchological 

 data, and in that sense have always been and are still used by me. 



The distribution of the fossil species from which the results before 

 mentioned were obtained in 1830 by M. Deshayes was as follows : — 



In the formations of the Pliocene periods, older and newer, - 111 



In the Miocene (upper or Falunian), - 1021 



In the Eocene (including the Gres de Fontainebleau), - - 1238 



3036 



Since the year 1830, the number of new living species obtained 

 from different parts of the globe has been exceedingly great, supplying 

 fresh data for comparison, and enabling the paleontologist to correct 

 many erroneous indentifications of fossil and recent forms. New 

 species also have been collected in abundance from tertiary formations 

 of every age, while newly discovered groups of strata have filled up 

 gaps in the previously known series. Hence modifications and reforms 

 have been called for in the classification first proposed. The Eocene, 

 Miocene, and Pliocene periods have been made to comprehend certain 

 sets of strata of which the fossils do not always conform strictly in the 

 proportion of recent to extinct species with the definitions first given 

 by me, or which are implied in the etymology of those terms. Of 

 these and other innovations I shall treat more fully in the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth chapters. 



Newer Pliocene — Ischia. — "We have already seen, page 108, that in 

 the neighborhood of Naples there are stratified tuffs containing a large 

 number of fossil shells agreeing specifically with those now living in 

 the Mediterranean. Of an age immediately antecedent to those 

 Post-pliocene formations are the volcanic tuffs of the neighboring 

 island of Ischia, some of them rising in the summit of Santa Nicola 

 or Monte Eporneo to the height of 2605 feet above the sea. I stated 

 in the first editions of the " Principles of Geology" * that in 1828 I 

 had procured many fossil shells from near the village of Moropano, at 

 an elevation of 2000 feet above the Mediterranean. I have since 

 found, on revisiting Ischia, that the spot is not more than 1600 feet 

 hich ; but this error is not of geological importance, as the beds are 

 admitted to form a part of the same greenish and bluish marls which 

 reach the top of Eporneo. The whole of the fossil species, 28 in 

 number, which I first collected there, were examined by M. Deshayes 

 and recognized by him as all now living. I called them Newer Plio- 

 cene, considering them of much more modern date than the Sub- 

 apennine strata,f to which Signor Spada Lavini proposed, in 1853, to 

 lefer them. He seems to have adopted this opinion, because among 



* Principles of Geology, vol. hi. p. 126, 1S33. 

 f See Principles, Table, vol. iii. pp. 16 and 126. 



