FALUNS OF TOUKAINK 
211 
CHAPTER XIV. 
MIOCENE PERIOD—UPPER MIOCENE. 
Upper Miocene Strata of France.—Faluns of Touraine.—Tropical Climate 
implied by Testacea.—Proportion of recent Species of Shells.-—Faluns 
more ancient than the Suffolk Crag.—Upper Miocene of Bordeaux and 
the South of France.—Upper Miocene of (Eningen, in Switzerland.—Plants 
of the Upper Fresh-water Molasse.—Fossil Fruit and Flowers as well as 
Leaves.—Insects of the Upper Molasse.—^Middle or Marine Molasse of 
Switzerland.—Upper Miocene Beds of the Bolderberg, in Belgium.—Vien¬ 
na Basin.—Upper Miocene of Italy and Greece.—Upper Miocene of India; 
SiwMik Hills.—Older Pliocene and Miocene of the United States. 
Upper Miocene Strata of France —Faluns of Touraine.— 
The strata which we meet with next in the descending order 
are those called by many geologists “ Middle Tertiary,” for 
which in 1833 I proposed the name of Miocene, selecting the 
“ faluns ” of the valley of the Loire, in France, as my example 
or type. I shall now call these falunian deposits tipper Mi¬ 
ocene, to distinguish them from others to which the name of 
Lower Miocene will be given. 
No British strata have a distinct claim to be regarded 
as Upper Miocene, and as the Lower Miocene are also but 
feebly represented in the British Isles, we must refer to for¬ 
eign examples in illustration of this important period in the 
earth’s history. The term “faluns” is given provincially by 
French agriculturists to shelly sand and marl spread over 
the land in Touraine, just as similar shelly deposits were for¬ 
merly much used in Suffolk to fertilize the soil, before the 
coprolitic or phosphatic nodules came into use. Isolated 
masses of such faluns occur from near the mouth of the Loire, 
in the neighborhood of Nantes, to as far inland as a district 
south of Tours. They are also found at Pontlevoy, on the 
Cher, about seventy miles above the junction of that river 
with the Loire, and thirty miles south-east of Tours. De¬ 
posits of the same age also appe’ar under new mineral con¬ 
ditions near the towns of Dinan and Rennes, in Brittany. I 
have visited all the localities above enumerated, and found 
the beds on the Loire to consist principally of sand and marl, 
in which are shells and corals, some entire, some rolled, and 
others in minute fragments. In cert^nn districts, as at Done, 
in the Department of Maine and LoiFe, ten miles south-west 
