248 MIOCENE STKATA OF SWITZERLAND. [Oh. XV. 



CHAPTER XV. 



miocene formations — continued. 



Miocene Strata of Switzerland — Upper Miocene beds of GSningen — Importance of 

 Fossil Plants — Heer's work on the Swiss Miocene flora — Plants and insects of 

 ffiningen imbedded in different seasons — Fossil fruits and flowers, as well as 

 leaves — Middle or Marine. Molasse of Switzerland — Lower Molasse, or Lower 

 Miocene — Dense conglomerates and proofs of subsidence — Fossil plants of 

 Lower Miocene period more tropical — Preponderance of arborescent species — 

 Supposed discordance in relative numbers of living species of plants and shells 

 in Upper Miocene formations — Theory of a Miocene Atlantis — Whether the 

 American plants abounding in the Miocene of Europe migrated by a westerly 

 or an easterly route — Objections derived from depth and width of the Atlantic — 

 Arguments in favor of a Trans-Asiatic migration — Miocene fossils of Oregon — 

 Agreement of Miocene corals of the West Indies and Europe opposed to the 

 theory of an Atlantic Continent — Upper Miocene formations of India — Sub- 

 Himalayan or Siwalik Hills — Older Pliocene and Miocene formations in the 

 United States of America. 



MIOCENE STRATA OF SWITZERLAND. 



Upper Miocene beds of (Eningen. — The faluns of the Loire first 

 served, as already stated (p. 212), as the type of the Miocene forma- 

 tions in Europe. They yielded a plentiful harvest of fossil shells and 

 zoophytes, but were entirely barren of plants and insects. In Swit- 

 zerland, on the other hand, deposits of the same age have been dis- 

 covered, remarkable for their botanical and entomological treasures. 



We are indebted to Professor Heer of Zurich for the description, 

 restoration, and classification of more than 900 species of these fossil 

 plants, the whole of which he has illustrated by excellent figures in 

 his ." Flora Tertiaria Helvetia?." * In this great work he has achieved 

 for the botany of the Tertiary formations what his distinguished pre- 

 decessor, Adolphe Brongniart, had done for the fossil plants of the 

 Primary and Secondary rocks. MM. Unger and Goppert, by their 

 able descriptions of the plants of the Brown Coal of Germany, had 

 already prepared the minds of geologists to expect that botany 

 would one day play almost as important a part as conchology in ena- 

 bling us to identify and classify the middle tertiary strata. But no 



* This work, in three vols., containing 155 folio plates of fossil plants, was pub- 

 lished at Winterthur in 1855-'9, and a French translation of those chapters which 

 relate to the geology, botany, and climate of the Swiss Miocene strata appeared in 

 1862, edited by Prof. Heer and M. Charles-Tb. Gaudin, entitled " Eecherches sur le 

 Climat et la Vegetation du Pays Tertiaire." 



