On. XIV.] FALUNS OF TOURAINE. 213 



towns of Dinan and Rennes, in Brittany. I have visited all the locali- 

 ties above enumerated', and found the beds on the Loire to consist princi- 

 pally of sand and marl,, in which are shells and corals, some entire, some 

 rolled, and others in minute fragments. In certain districts, as at Doue, 

 in the department of Maine and Loire, 10 miles S.W. of Saumur, they 

 form a soft building-stone, chiefly composed of an aggregate of broken 

 shells, bryozoa, corals, and echinoderms, united by a calcareous cement ; 

 the whole mass being veiy like the Coralline Crag near Aldborough and 

 Sudbourn in Suffolk. The scattered patches of faluns are of slight 

 thickness, rarely exceeding 50 feet ; and between the district called 

 Sologne and the sea they repose on a great variety of older rocks ; being 

 seen to rest successively upon gneiss, clayslate, various secondary for- 

 mations, including the chalk ; and, lastly, upon the upper freshwater 

 limestone of the Parisian tertiary series, which, as before mentioned 

 (p. 183), stretches continuously from the basin of the Seine to that of 

 the Loire. 



At some points, as at Louans, south of Tours, the shells are stained of 

 a ferruginous color, not unlike that of the Red Crag of Suffolk. The 

 species are, for the most part, marine, but Fig. 162 a. 



a few of them belong to land and fluviatile 

 genera. Among the former, Helix turo- 

 nensis (fig. 45, p. 30) is the most abun- 

 dant. Remains of terrestrial quadrupeds 

 are here and there intermixed, belonging 

 to the genera Deinotherium (fig. 162 a), 

 Mastodon, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, 

 Chaeropotamus, Dichobune, Deer, and 

 others, and these are accompanied by 

 cetacea, such as the Lamantine, Morse, 

 Sea-Calf, and Dolphin, all of extinct 



Species. Deinotherium giganUum, Kaup. 



Professor E. -Forbes, after studying the fossil testacea which I obtainea 

 from these beds, informs me that he has no doubt they were formed 

 partly on the shore itself at the level of low water, and partly at very 

 moderate depths, not exceeding ten fathoms below that level. The mol- 

 luscous fauna of the " faluns" is on the whole much more littoral than 

 that of the Red and Coralline Ci;xg of Suffolk, and implies a shallower 

 sea. It is, moreover, contrasted with the Suffolk Crag by the indications 

 it affords of an extra-European climate. Thus it contains seven species of 

 Cyprcea, some larger than any existing cowry of the Mediterranean, sev- 

 eral species of Oliva, Ancillaria, Mitra, Terebra, Pi/rula, Fasciolaria, 

 and Conus. Of the cones there are no less than eight species, some very 

 large, whereas the only European cone is of diminutive size. The genus 

 JVerita, and many others, are also represented by individuals of a type now 

 characteristic of equatorial seas, and wholly unlike any Mediterranean 

 forms. These proofs of a more elevated temperature seem to imply the 

 higher antiquity of the faluns as compared with the Suffolk Crag, and 



