. Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments. Geology. Ch. XV.] LOWER MIOCENE—NEBRASKA. 279 cal distribution of mollusca date back to a period as remote as that of tlie Miocene strata. Of ten species of zoophytes which I procured on the banks of the James River, one was formerly supposed by Mr. Lonsdale to be iden- tical with a fossil from the faluns of Touraine, but this species (see fig. 209) proves on reexamination to be different, and to agree generically with a ris- 209- coral now living on the coast of the Uni- ted
. Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments. Geology. Ch. XV.] LOWER MIOCENE—NEBRASKA. 279 cal distribution of mollusca date back to a period as remote as that of tlie Miocene strata. Of ten species of zoophytes which I procured on the banks of the James River, one was formerly supposed by Mr. Lonsdale to be iden- tical with a fossil from the faluns of Touraine, but this species (see fig. 209) proves on reexamination to be different, and to agree generically with a ris- 209- coral now living on the coast of the Uni- ted States. "With respect to climate, Mr. Lonsdale regards these corals as indicating a temperature exceeding that of the Medi- terranean, and the shells would lead to "12 similar conclusions. Those occurring on the James River are in the 37th degree of X. latitude, while the French faluns are in the 47th; yet the forms of the American *st™Qf f 7f to< Lonsdale. ' J m Syn. Antnophyllum Uneatwm. fossils would scarcely imply SO warm a cli- Williamsburg, Virginia. mate as must have prevailed in France when the Miocene strata of Touraine originated. Among the remains of fish in these Post-eocene strata of the Uni- ted States are several large teeth of the shark family, not distinguish- able specifically from fossils of the faluns of Touraine. LOWER MIOCENE, UNITED STATES. Nebraska.—In the territory of Nebraska, on the Upper Missouri, near the Platte River, lat. 42° K, a tertiary formation occurs, con- sisting of white limestone, marls, and siliceous clay, described by Dr. D. Dale Owen,* in which many bones of extinct quadrupeds, and of chelonians of land or freshwater forms, are met with. Among these, Dr. Leidy describes a gigantic quadruped, called by him Titanothe- rium, nearly allied to the Paloeotherium, but larger than any of the species found in the Paris gypsum. With these are several species of the genus Oreodon, Leidy, uniting the characters of pachyderms a
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