250 UPPER MIOCENE OF SWITZERLAND. [Oh. XV. 



reptile, or aquatic salamander, of larger dimensions than even its 

 great living representative the salamander of Japan. 



The (Eningen strata consist of a series of marls and limestones, 

 many of them thinly laminated, and which appear to have slowly 

 accumulated in a lake probably fed by springs holding carbonate of 

 lime in solution. 



The elliptical area over which this freshwater formation has been 

 traced extends, according to Sir Roderick Murchison, for a distance 

 of ten miles east and west from Beiiingen, on the right bank of the 

 river to Wangen, and to (Eningen, near Stein, on the left bank. The 

 organic remains have been chiefly derived from two quarries, the 

 lower of which is about 550 feet above the level of the Lake of 

 Constance, while the upper quarry is 150 feet higher. In this last, 

 a section thirty feet deep displays a great succession of beds, most of 

 them splitting into slabs and some into very thin laminae. Twenty- 

 one beds are enumerated by Professor Heer, the uppermost a bluish- 

 gray marl seven feet thick, without organic remains, resting on a -lime- 

 stone with fossil plants, including leaves of poplar, cinnamon, and 

 pond-weed (Potamogeton), together with some insects ; while in the 

 bed No. 4, below, is a bituminous rock, in which the Mastodon an- 

 gustidens, a characteristic Upper Miocene quadruped, has been met 

 with. The 5th bed, two or three inches thick, contains fossil fish, e. g. 

 Leuciscus (roach), and the larvae of dragon-flies, with plants such as 

 the elm ( Ulmus), and the aquatic Chara. Below this are other plant- 

 beds ; and then, in No. 9, the stone in which the great salamander 

 (Andrias Scheuchzeri) and some fish were found. Below this, other 

 strata occur with fish, tortoises, the great salamander before alluded 

 to, freshwater mussels, and plants. In No. 16 the fossil fox of 

 (Eningen, Galecynus GEningensis, Owen, was obtained by Sir R. 

 Murchison. To this succeed other beds with mammalia (Lagomys), 

 reptiles (Emys), fish, and plants, such as walnut, maple, and poplar. 

 In the 19th bed are numerous fish, insects, and plants, below which 

 are marls, of a blue indigo color. 



In the lower quarry eleven beds are mentioned, in which, as in 

 the upper, both land and freshwater plants and many insects occur. 

 In the 6th, reckoning from the top, many plants have been obtained, 

 such as Liquidambar, Daphnogene, Podogonium, and Elm, together 

 with tortoises, besides the bones and teeth of a ruminant quadruped, 

 named by H. V. Meyer Paleomeryce eminens. No. 9 is called the in- 

 sect bed, a layer only a few inches thick, which, when exposed to the 

 frost, splits into leaves as thin as paper. In these thin laminae plants 

 such as Liquidambar, Daphnogene, and Glyptostrobus occur, with in 

 numerable insects in a wonderful state of preservation, usually found 

 singly. Below this is an indigo-blue marl, like that at the bottom of 

 the higher quarry, resting on yellow marl ascertained to be at least 

 thirty feet thick. 



All the above fossil-bearing strata were evidently formed with 





