Parr IV. Sect, iii. § 2) MIOCENE. 865 
furnish any clue, and their identification has therefore to be made 
by means of fossil evidence. But this evidence is occasionally con- 
tradictory. For example, the remarkable mammalian fauna described 
by M. Gaudry from Pikermiin Attica has so many points of con- 
nection with the recognized Miocene fauna of other European localities 
that this observer classed it also as Miocene. He has pointed 
out, however, that ina shell-bearing bed underlying the ossiferous 
deposit of Pikermi some characteristic Pliocene species of marine 
-mollusea occur. Hence, if we take marine mollusca as our guide, we 
must place the Pikermi beds in the Pliocene series.’ 
§ 2. Local Development. 
France.—True Miocene deposits are not known to occur in Britain. 
In France, however, in the district known as Touraine, traversed by the 
rivers Loire, Indre, and Cher, there occurs a group of shelly sands and 
marls, which, as far back as 1833, was selected by Lyell as the type of 
his Miocene subdivision. These strata occur in widely extended but 
isolated patches, rarely more than fifty feet thick, and are known as 
“ Faluns,” having long been used as a fertilizing material for spreading 
over the soil. They present the characters of littoral and shallow- 
water marine deposits, consisting sometimes of a kind of coarse breccia 
of shells and shell-fragments, occasionally mixed with quartz-sand, and 
now and then passing into a more compact calcareous mass or even into 
limestone. Along a line that may have been near the coast-line of the 
period a few land and fresh-water shells, together with bones of terrestrial 
mammals, are found, but with these exceptions, the fauna is throughout 
marine. Among the fossils are numerous corals, and upwards of 300 
Species of molluscs, among which the following are characteristic: 
Pholas Dujardini, Venus clathrata, Cardium turonicum, Cardita affinis, 
Trochus punctulatus, Cerithium Puymarize, Buccinum blesense, B. spectabile, 
with species of Cypreea, Conus, Murex, Oliva, Ancillaria, and Fasciolaria. 
This assemblage of shells indicates a warmer climate than that of 
southern Europe at the present time. The mammalian bones include 
the genera Mastodon, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Cheropotamus, deer, Xc., 
and extinct species of cetaceans, such as morse, sea-calf, dolphin, and 
lamantin. 
In the region of Bordeaux and southward to the base of the Pyrenees, 
a large area is overspread with Oligocene deposits, equivalents of the 
younger Tertiary series of the Paris basin. Above these fresh-water and 
marine beds lie patches of faluns like those of Touraine. From the 
Miocene beds of other tracts of the south of France, remains of numerous 
interesting mammalia have been obtained. Among these are Deinothe- 
rium giganteum, Mastodon angustidens, Rhinoceros Schleiermacheri, Machzro- 
dus cultridens, Helladotherium Duvernoyi, and several apes and monkeys 
(Pliopithecus, Dryopithecus). 
Belgium.—In this country the upper Oligocene strata of Germany 
are absent. In the neighbourhood of Antwerp certain black, grey, or 
greenish glauconitic sands (“Black Crag”), which in paleontological 
characters have both Miocene and Pliocene affinities, have been termed 
This point is further referred to af p. 878. 
o K 
