878 STRATIGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. — [Boox VI. 
. Astian—yellow sands. 
. Plaisancian—blue clays or marls. 
. Zanclean—marly beds and light-coloured limestones. 
ket DO OD 
Of these stages the first is characterized by a fauna of which nearly 
?; are peculiar species, and only 85 out of 504 species, or about 17 per 
cent., belong to living forms, which are nearly all found in the Mediter- 
ranean. Some of the common species of the deposit are Janira flabelli- 
formis, Terebratulina caput-serpentis, Rhynchonella bipartita, Dentalium 
triquetrum, Limopsis aurita, Leda dilatata, L. striata, Phill. Modiola phaseo- 
lina. Tropical genera are well represented among the shells of the 
Italian Pliocene beds, while some of the still living Mediterranean 
genera occur there more abundantly, or in larger forms than on the 
present sea-bottom. The newer Pliocene beds attain in Sicily a thick- 
ness of 2000 feet or more, rising to a height of 3000 feet above the 
present sea-level, and covering nearly half of the island. One of their 
members is a yellowish limestone, sometimes remarkably massive and 
compact, and 700 or 800 feet thick, yet full of living species of Mediter- 
ranean shells, some of which even retain their colour and a part of their 
animal matter. It was during the accumulation of the Pliocene strata 
that the history of Etna began, the first stages being submarine erup- 
tions, which were followed by the piling up of the present vast subaerial 
cone upon the upraised Pliocene sea-bottom. 
The Italian Pliocene deposits, while chiefly of marine origin, contain 
also intercalations of lacustrine or fluviatile strata, in which remains of 
the terrestrial flora and fauna have been preserved. In the upper part | 
of the valley of the Arno an accumulation of lacustrine beds attains a 
depth of 750 feet. ‘The older portion consists of blue clays and lignites, 
with the abundant vegetation above referred to (p. 871). The upper 
200 feet consists of sands and a conglomerate (‘‘sansino”), and have 
yielded remains of Mastodon Arvernensis, Elephas meridionalis, Rhinoceros 
etruscus, Hippopotamus major, Ursus, Hyena, Felis, &e. 
Greece.—A remarkable series of mammalian remains brought to 
light from certain hard red clays alternating with gravels at Pikermi, in 
Attica, has been carefully worked out 
by M. Gaudry.1 The list includes a 
monkey (Mesopithecus) intermediate be- 
tween the living Semnopithecus of Asia 
and the Macaques. ‘The carnivores are 
represented by Simocyon, Mustela, Pro- 
mephitis, Ictitherium,—a genus allied to 
the modern civet—Hyznictis, Hyena, 
Machairodus, and several species of 
Felis; the rodents by Hystrix, allied to 
the common porcupine; the edentates 
by the gigantic Ancylotherium; the 
proboscideans by Mastodon and Deino- 
therium ; the pachyderms by Rhinoceros (several species), Acerotherium, 
Leptodon, Hipparion, and a gigantic wild boar (Sus erymanthius); the — 
ruminants by Camelopardalis, of the same size as the living giraffe, 
Helladotherium—a form between the giraffe and the antelopes—three 

Fig. 423.—MACHAIRODUS, THE SABRE- 
‘ TOOTHED LION, 
1 Aniywauc fossiles et Géologie de U Attique, 4to, 1862, with volume of plates. See also 
Roth and Wagner, Abhandl. Bayer. Akad. vii, (1854), 

