Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:57:16.440Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

V.—The Geological Development, Descent and Distribution of the Mammalia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Karl A. von Zittel
Affiliation:
For. Memb. Geol. Soc. Lond.

Extract

The Pliocene mammalian land fauna lived at a period when Europe had already obtained the main features of its present configuration. Italy, to be sure, at the beginning of this period was still partly overflowed by the sea, and in Belgium, Holland, and the South of England, the North Sea extended further over the land than to-day and left behind the deposits known as the Crag. Over the extended mainland of Central Europe, the conditions for the preservation of mammals were, on account of the absence of more extended fresh-water lakes, extremely unfavourable. Only the volcanic tuffs in Auvergne, the fissures filled with Bohnerz of the Upper Rhone valley, and the scattered fresh-water deposits of the Rhone valley, Roussillon and the neighbourhood of Montpellier, contain remains of the Pliocene land fauna, which are handed down in greater perfection in the swampy, and in part coal-bearing, sediments of the Arno valley and in the partly marine formations of Piedmont and the Romagna.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1893

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 501 note 1 The genera marked with * appear for the first time in the Pliocene; those marked with † become extinct.

page 505 note 1 The genera marked with † are extinct, those to which (N.) is affixed are of North American origin.

page 507 note 1 In the following table only the species from the Mediterranean region are printed in thick type; those with † are extinct.

page 509 note 1 Nehring, A. Ueber Tundren und Steppen der Jetzt-und Vorzeit. Berlin, 1890.Google Scholar

page 510 note 1 Nehring A. Uebersicht über vierundzwanzig mitteleuropäische Quartär-Faunen. Zeitsch. d. deutsoh. geol. Ges. 1880, p. 468.Google Scholar

page 510 note 2 Woldrich, J. N., Die diluvialen Faunen Mittel-Europa's. Mitth. Anthrop. Ges. Wien. 1882, xi.Google Scholar

page 510 note 3 Brandt, J. Fr. und Woldrich, J. N. Diluviale europäisch-nordasiatische Säugethierfauna und ihre Beziehungen zum Menschen. Mém. Acad. imp. St. Pétersbourg, 1887, vii. sér. xxxv. No. 10.Google Scholar

page 510 note 4 Naturgeschichte des Elens. Mém. Acad. imp. St Pétersbourg, xvi. pp. 3950.Google Scholar

page 510 note 5 Tschersky, J. D. Wissenscbaft. Ergebnisse d. Neusibirischen Expedition d. J. 1885 und 1886, iv.Google Scholar, Posttertiäre Säugethiere. Mém. Acad. imp. St. Pétersbourg, 1892, xli. p. 455, 511.Google Scholar

page 512 note 1 Wallace, A. R., The Geographical Distribution of Animals, 1876.Google Scholar

page 512 note 2 Th., Huxley Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 316.Google Scholar