ABSTRACT FROM PROFESSOR SUESS's PAPER. 



497 



Iain's Office,* have enabled me to visit during the summer of 1860 

 the whole western side of the Vienna basin, and to measure altitudes 

 fit for being made a basis of a tabular synopsis of the bathymetrical 

 distribution of our tertiary marine fauna. M. de Schwabenau having 

 kindly informed me of the discovery of a Tertiary bone-bed at 

 Baltavar (VV. Hungary), the Imperial Geological Museum entrusted 

 me with a mission to this place, where, by long-continued diggings, I 

 succeeded in finding, in an horizon which I think answers to the gravel 

 of Belvedere (Vienna), remains of species most characteristic of the 

 well-known Fauna of Pikermi, in Attica, — such as Machairodus cul- 

 tridens, Hycena Hipparionum, Dinotherium sp., Rhinoceros sp., Sus 

 Erymanthius, Antilope brevicornis, Helladotherium Dunervoyi, Hippo- 

 therium gracile, &c. 



A rich collection of Pikermi fossils recently sent to the Imperial 

 Museum by Baron Breuner-Felsach, then His Majesty's Ambassador 

 at the Court of Athens, came in due time to confirm me in the con- 

 viction of the identity of my Second Mammalian Fauna of the Vienna 

 basin (Inzersdorf, Belvedere) with those of Pikermi, Eppelsheim, an< 

 Mr. Lartet's "Miocene superieur" (Cucuron, Vaucluse).t 



Other remains of Mammalia, preserved either in public or in 

 private collections, have convinced me that our Vienna marine 

 deposits, including remains of Mastodon angustidens, Mast, tapiroides, 

 Anchitherium Aurelianense, and Listriodon splendens, answer exactly 

 to M. Lartet's " Miocene moyen," an horizon to which, as proved by 

 the specimens in the collection of the Joanneum at Gratz, the coal- 

 bearing tertiaries of Parschlug, Eibiswald, Wies, and Aflohtz (Styria) 

 must likewise be referred. 



The coal of Zemlye, near Totis (Hungary), including remains of 

 Anthracotherium magnum, together with the deposits of Zouercado 

 (Venetia), Cadibona (Piemont), and Rochette (Canton de Vaud), 

 represents another and lower horizon, answering M. Lartet's " Miocene 

 Inferieur," or the " Aquitanian strata " of the Helvetian Palaeontolo- 

 gist, and the Fauna of which is anterior to the formation of the 

 Vienna Basin in the strict sense of the term. 



Before general results can be drawn from the comparison of 

 terrestrial Mammalian Faunae, the species of some of the most impor- 

 tant families must be duly determined and limited, to obtain (at least 

 partially) a basis such as has been obtained from the marine Fauna 

 by the distinguished researches of MM. Homes, Reuss, d'Orbigny, &c. 



For obvious reasons Carnivora are constantly very inferior in 

 individual number to their herbivorous contemporaries ; and conse- 

 quently their fossil remains are comparatively scarce. Even in our 

 country the individuals of Ursus spelmus, buried in one single 

 cave under diluvian deposits, may in some cases be numbered by 

 hundreds, and the remains of badgers are said to be equally frequent 



* Vienna Imperial Museum of Natural History, Antiquities, &c, as well as the 

 Imperial Gallery of Pictures, is under the control of His Majesty's Lord Cham- 

 berlain's Office, from whose funds they receive their allowances. 



t Bulletin de la Soc. Geol. de France, 1859, Vol. xvi. p. 476. 

 VOL. IV. 3 I 



