Ch. XV.] 
FALUNS OF TOURAINE, 
203 
before enumerated as containing monuments of the era under 
consideration. 
Touraine. — We have already alluded to the proofs of super- 
position adduced by M. Desnoyers, to show that the shelly 
strata provincially called * the Faluns of the Loire ' were pos- 
terior to the most recent fresh-water formation of the basin of 
the Seine. Their position, therefore, shows that they are of 
newer origin than the Eocene strata, — more recent, at least, 
than the uppermost beds of the Paris basin. But an exami- 
nation of their fossil contents proves also that they are refer- 
rible to that type which distinguishes the Miocene period. 
When three hundred of the Touraine shells were compared 
with more than eleven hundred of the Parisian species, there 
were scarcely more than twenty which could be identified ; 
and, on the other hand, the fossil shells of the Touraine beds 
agree far less with the testacea now inhabiting our seas than 
does the group occurring in the older Pliocene strata of 
northern Italy. 
The Miocene strata of the Loire have been observed to 
repose on a great variety of older rocks between Sologne and 
the sea, in which line they are seen to rest successively upon 
gneiss, clay- slate, coal-measures, Jura limestone, greenstone, 
chalk, and lastly upon the upper fresh-water deposits of the 
basin of the Seine. They consist principally of quartzose 
gravel, sand, and broken shells. The beds are generally inco- 
herent, but sometimes agglutinated together by a calcareous or 
earthy cement, so as to serve as a building-stone. Like the 
shelly portion of the crag of Norfolk and Suffolk, the faluns 
and associated strata are of slight thickness, not exceeding 
seventy feet. They often bear a close resemblance to the 
crag in appearance, the shells being stained of the same ferru- 
ginous colour, and being in the same state of decay ; serving 
in Touraine, just as in Norfolk and Suffolk, to fertilize the 
arable land. Like the crag, also, they contain mammiferous 
remains, which are not only intermixed with marine shells, but 
sometimes encrusted with serpulse, flustra, and balani. These 
