Parr IV, Sxor.i.§2.] EOCENE. 853 
Kirthar group. A marine limestone formation in general, but passing locally 
into sandstones and shales. The upper limestones contain Nummulites 
garansensis, N. sublevigata. 
Nummulitic limestone of Sind, Punjab, Assam, Burmah, &c. Subathi of 
sub-Himalayas, Indus or Shingo beds of Western Thibet. 
Ranikot beds—sandstones, shales, clays with gypsum and lignite, 1500 to 2000 
feet; abundant marine fauna, including Nummulites spira, N. irreqularis, 
N. Leymeriet. 
Lower Nummulitic group of Salt Range. 
North America.—Tertiary formations of marine origin extend in a 
strip of low land along the Atlantic border of the United States, from 
the coast of New Jersey southward round the margin of the Gulf of 
Mexico, whence they run up the valley of the Mississippi to beyond the 
mouth of the Ohio. On the western sea-board they also occur in the 
coast ranges of California and. Oregon, where they sometimes have a 
thickness of 3000 or 4000 feet, and reach a height of 3000 feet above the 
sea. Over the Rocky Mountain region Tertiary strata cover an exten- 
sive area, but are chiefly of fresh-water origin. The following are the 
subdivisions into which they have been grouped, together with their 
supposed European equivalents : 
3. Sumter series = Pliocene. 
2. Yorktown ,, =Miocene, with perhaps part of Pliocene. 
1. Alabama ,, = Eocene. 
Alabama Group.—As the name implies, this group is well developed 
in the State of Alabama, where it consists of the following two sub- 
groups in ascending order,—(1) the Clayborne beds —clays, marls, 
limestones, lignite, and sands; and (2) the Vicksburg beds—lignitic 
clays, limestones, and marls,—the whole attaining a thickness of nearly 
250 feet. But the strata thicken into South Carolina. The fossils of 
the Alabama group in the eastern States comprise numerous sharks, some 
of which are specifically, and more are generically, the same as some of 
the English Eocene forms, such as Lamna elegans and Carcharodon mega- 
_ lodon ; also bones of several crocodiles and snakes. 
Over the Rocky Mountain region and the vast plateaux lying to the 
west of that range the older Tertiary beds consist mainly of lacustrine 
strata of great thickness, wherein the following subdivisions in descend- 
ing order have been established : 
4, Uinta group (400 feet) or “ Diplacadon beds.”’ 
3. Bridger group (5000 feet) or ‘“‘ Deinoceras beds.” 
2. Green River group (2000 feet). 
1. Wahsatch (Vermilion Creek) group (5000 feet). 
The extraordinary richness of these strata in vertebrate and particu- 
larly mammalian remains, already referred to (p. 842), has given them a 
high importance in geological and paleontological history. 
