UPPER MIOCENE BEDS, VIENNA. 
225 
on the fossil mollusca of that formation, we see accurate fig¬ 
ures of many shells, clearly of the same species as those 
found in the falunian sands of Touraine. 
According to Professor Suess, the most ancient and purely 
marine of the Miocene strata in this basin consist of sands, 
conglomerates, limestones, and clays, and they are inclined 
inward, or from the borders of the trough towards the cen¬ 
tre, their outcropping edges rising much higher than the new¬ 
er beds, whether Miocene or Pliocene, which overlie them, 
and which occupy a smaller area at an inferior elevation 
above the sea. M. Hornes has described no less than 500 
species of gasteropods, of which he identifies one-fifth with 
living species of the Mediterranean, Indian, or African seas, 
but the proportion of existing species among the lamelli- 
branchiate bivalves exceeds this average. Among many 
univalves agreeing with those of Africa on the eastern side 
of the Atlantic are Cyprcea sanguinolenta^ Buccinum lyra- 
tiim^ and Oliva flammulata. In the lowest marine beds of 
the Vienna basin the remains of several mammalia have been 
found, and among them a species of Dinotherium^ a Masto¬ 
don of the Tvilophodon family, a Rhinoceros (allied to B. 
megarhiniis^ Christol), also an animal of the hog tribe, Listri- 
odon^ Yon Meyer, and a carnivorous animal of the canine 
family. The Helix turonensis (Fig. 38, p. 56), the most com¬ 
mon land shell of the French faluns, accompanies the above 
land animals. In a higher member of the Vienna Miocene 
series are found Dinothermm giganteum (Fig. 136, p. 212), 
Mastodon longirostris^ Rhinoceros Schleiermacheri^ Acerothe- 
rium incisivum^ and Hippotherinm gracile^ all of them equally 
characteristic of an Upper Miocene deposit occurring at Ep- 
pelsheim, in Hesse Darmstadt; a locality also remarkable as 
having furnished in latitude 49° 50' N. the bone of a large 
ape of the Gibbon kind, the most north¬ 
erly example yet discovered of a quadru- 
manoiis animal. 
M. Alcide d’Orbigny has shown that 
the foraminifera of the Vienna basin dif¬ 
fer alike from the Eocene and Pliocene 
species, and agree with those of the fa¬ 
luns, so far as the latter are known. 
Among the Vienna foraminifera, the ge- 
n\xs Amphistegina (Fig. 147) is very char¬ 
acteristic, and is supposed by d’Archiac to 
take the same place among the Rhizopods of the Upper Mio¬ 
cene era which the Nummulites occupy in the Eocene period. 
The flora of the Vienna basin exhibits some species which 
10 * 
Fig. 147. 
AmpMstegina Hauprma, 
D’Orb. Upper Miocene 
strata, Vienna. 
