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Those occurring on the James River are in the 37th degree of N. latitude, while the French faluns are in the 47th; yet the forms of the American fossils would scarcely imply so warm a climate as must have prevailed in France when the Miocene strata of Touraine originated. Astrangia lineata, Lonsdale. Syn. Anthophyllum lineatum.
M. Gaudin, jointly with the Marquis Strozzi, has thrown much light on the botany of beds of the same age in another part of Tuscany, at a place called Montajone, between the rivers Elsa and Evola, where, among other plants, is found the Oreodaphne Heerii, Gaud. Gaudin and Strozzi. Upper Miocene Strata of France. faluns of Touraine. Tropical Climate implied by Testacea.
Among the remains of fish in these post-eocene strata of the United States are several large teeth of the shark family, not distinguishable specifically from fossils of the faluns of Touraine. Lower Miocene Strata of France. Line between Miocene and Eocene. Lacustrine Strata of Auvergne. Fossil mammalia of the Limagne d'Auvergne. Lower Molasse of Switzerland.
As this miliolitic stone never occurs in the Faluns, or Upper Miocene strata of Brittany and Touraine, it often furnishes the geologist with a useful criterion for distinguishing the detached Eocene and Upper Miocene formations scattered over those and other adjoining provinces.
The Miocene formations of Switzerland have been called MOLASSE, a term derived from the French MOL, and applied to a SOFT, incoherent, greenish sandstone, occupying the country between the Alps and the Jura. This molasse comprises three divisions, of which the middle one is marine, and being closely related by its shells to the faluns of Touraine, may be classed as Upper Miocene.
A great extent of country between the Pyrenees and the Gironde is overspread by tertiary deposits of various ages, and chiefly of Miocene date. Some of these, near Bordeaux, coincide in age with the faluns of Touraine, already mentioned, but many of the species of shells are peculiar to the south.
Upper Miocene of Italy and Greece. Upper Miocene of India; Siwalik Hills. Older Pliocene and Miocene of the United States. 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.
It was before stated that the Miocene formation of Switzerland consisted of, first, the upper fresh-water molasse, comprising the lacustrine marls of Oeningen; secondly, the marine molasse, corresponding in age to the faluns of Touraine; and thirdly, the lower fresh-water molasse. Some of the beds of the marine or middle series reach a height of 2470 feet above the sea.
They indicate a state of things receding farther from the present condition of Central Europe in physical geography and climate, and doubtless, therefore, receding farther from our era in time. Voluta Lamberti, Sowerby. Variety characteristic of Faluns of Touraine.
The first example of these was pointed out in 1829 by M. Desnoyers, who ascertained that the sand and marl of marine origin called faluns, near Tours, in the basin of the Loire, full of sea-shells and corals, rested upon a lacustrine formation, which constitutes the uppermost subdivision of the Parisian group, extending continuously throughout a great table-land intervening between the basin of the Seine and that of the Loire.
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