244 UPPER MIOCENE BEDS OF VIENNA BASIN. [Ch. XIY, 



the underlying clays containing Leda Deshayesiana, are regarded as 

 the Kupelian of Dumont, while the shell-bearing sands of Weinheim, 

 near Alzey, are supposed to be somewhat older, and the equivalents 

 of the Gres de Fontainebleau. 



Upper Miocene beds of the Vienna basin. — In South Germany the 

 general resemblance of the shells of the Vienna tertiary basin with 

 those of the faluns of Touraine has long been acknowledged. In Dr. 

 Homes' excellent work on the fossil mollusca of that formation we see 

 accurate figures of many shells, clearly of the same species as those 

 found in the falunian sands of Touraine. 



According to Professor Suess, the most ancient and purely marine 

 of the Miocene strata in this basin consist of sands, conglomerates, 

 limestones, and clays, and they are inclined inwards or from the 

 borders of the trough toward the centre, their outcropping edges 

 rising much higher than the newer beds, whether Miocene or Pliocene, 

 which overlie them, and which occupy a small area at an inferior 

 elevation above the sea. M. Homes has described 500 species of 

 gasteropods, of which he identifies one-fifth with living species of the 

 Mediterranean, Indian, or African seas, but the proportion of existing 

 species among the lamelli-branchiate bivalves exceeds this average. 

 Among many univalves agreeing with those of Africa on the eastern 

 side of the Atlantic are Cyprecea sanguinolenta, Buccinum lyratwn 

 and Oliva ilammulata. In the lowest marine beds of the Vienna 



basin the remains of several mammalia have been found, and among 

 them a species of Dinotkerium, a Mastodon of the Trilophodon family, 

 a Rhinoceros (allied to R. megarkinus, Christol), also Listriodon, 

 Meyer (of the hog tribe), and a carnivorous animal of the canine 

 family. 



The Helix turonensis (fig. 45, p. 30), the most common land-shell 

 of the French faluns, accompanies the above. In a higher member 

 of the Vienna Miocene series are found Dinotkerium giganteum, Mas- 

 todon longirostris, Rhinoceros Sckleiermackeri, Acerotherium incisivum 

 and Hippotkerium gracile, all of them equally characteristic of an 

 Upper Miocene deposit occurring at Eppelsheim in Hesse Darmstadt, 

 above alluded to. M. Alcide d'Orbigny has shown that the foraminifera 

 of the Vienna basin differ alike from the Eocene and Pliocene species, 

 and agree with those of the faluns, so far as the latter are known. 

 Among the Vienna foraminifera, the genus Ampliistegina (fig. 178) is 



Fig. 178. 



Ampliistegina Hauerina, D'Orb. Upper Miocene strata, Vienna. 



