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I confess I am strongly inclined to surmise that these last, at any rate, are remnants of the population of Austro-Columbia before the Miocene epoch, and were not derived from Arctogaea by way of the north and east.
Thus there is a vast negative difference between the Cainozoic and the Mesozoic mammalian faunae of Europe. But there is a still more important positive difference, inasmuch as all these Mammalia appear to be Marsupials belonging to Australian groups, and thus appertaining to a different distributional province from the Eocene and Miocene marsupials, which are Austro-Columbian.
Consider how long a time has elapsed since the Miocene epoch. Yet, at that time there is reason to believe that every important group in every order of the Mammalia was represented.
Baron von Konen has pointed out that no less than forty-six out of the fifty- nine Brockenhurst shells, or a proportion of 78 per cent, agree with species occurring in Dumont's Lower Tongrian formation in Belgium. It is possible that the Tongrian of Dumont may be newer than the Bembridge series, and therefore referable to the Lower Miocene.
The effect of a different distribution of land and water in modifying the retardation caused by tidal friction, and of reducing it, under some circumstances, to a minimum, does not appear to be taken into account. During the Miocene epoch the polar ice was certainly many feet thinner than it has been during, or since, the Glacial epoch.
In the Miocene the stature of the ancestors of the horse increased to that of a pony. The feet were still three-toed, but the side hoofs were now mere dewclaws and scarcely touched the ground. The evolution of the family was completed in the Pliocene. The middle toe was enlarged still more, the side toes were dropped, and the palm and foot bones which supported them were reduced to splints.
Towards the close of the Miocene epoch volcanic eruptions commenced on a grand scale over the granitic platform in the districts now called Mont Dore, Cantal, and the Vivarais.
With these a salamander, scarcely distinguishable from the recent species, has been found, and the remains of many insects. The extinct volcanoes of Auvergne and Cantal, in central France, seem to have commenced their eruptions in the Lower Miocene period, but to have been most active during the Upper Miocene and Pliocene eras.
Lower Eocene Foetal: 6th month, that of a ruminant; Miocene Foetal: 7th month, that of a digitigrade animal; Miocene Miocene Pliocene Pliocene Scale: VERTEBRATA Mammalia: 57 Cheiroptera Rocks: 11. Pliocene Pliocene Foetal: 8th month, that of the quadrumana; Superficial deposits Foetal: 9th month, attains full human character;
The Grand Curral is the central vent of a volcano originally submarine, and, like the Peak of Tenerife, of the age miocene. Fossils of that epoch have been found upon the crater-walls of both. Subsequent movements capped it with subaerial lavas and conglomerates; and wind and weather, causing constant degradation, deepened the bowl and almost obliterated signs of igneous action.
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