THE BASIN OF THE LOIRE. The rocks which compose these upper layers of the earth’s crust, have all a family resemblance to the tertiaries already described. In the district of the Loire the _miocene_ beds consist generally of quartzose sand, gravel, and broken shells, mostly loose and earthy, but in many places agglutinated by a calcareous or ferruginous cement, so as to be fit for building purposes. The “faluns,” as they are provincially termed, resemble the crag of England, abounding in shells, and mammiferous remains incrusted with serpulæ, flustra, and balani, The deposit is seldom above seventy feet in its greatest thickness. Betwixt Sologne and the sea, patches are found to rest successively upon gneiss, clayslate, the coal-measures, Jura limestone, greenstone trap, chalk, and the upper beds of the eocene series. The _pleiocene_ beds are not materially different in their lithological characters from those of the miocene group: blue clays, marls, and osseous breccias are among the prevailing strata; and siltings of sand and gravel, only distinguishable by their organic remains from the alluvia and superficial drifts of the current era. Volcanic products are often largely mixed up with these pleiocene beds, and in districts where, in addition to the fossil evidence, they clearly establish that they belong to the class of extinct volcanoes, as the sedimentary deposits are themselves determined to belong to the pleiocene age. [Illustration: Restored Form of Dinotherium.] The interesting peculiarity connected with these two groups of the tertiary system is, that here all animal as well as vegetable life approaches a step nearer to the existing family types. Analogous species of molluscs are more numerous, the testacea in many instances being identical with those of our modern seas. The mammalia are likewise more akin to those of our domesticated tribes, where the horse is strikingly prefigured in the hippotherium, the dog in the agnotherium, and the cat in feline forms as large as lions. The glutton and the bear have also their compeers, nor are the fox, hare, and mouse, without their representatives. But the marvel of the formation is the DINOTHERIUM or gigantic tapir, whose dimensions in every organ and member are stupendous. The dinotherium was seemingly possessed of powers which enabled him at once to exercise the digging propensities of the mole and amphibious habits of the walrus, a trunk projecting nearly as long as that of the elephant, and two enormous tusks depending from the lower jaw. This animal was partly terrestrial and partly aquatic, and hence, says Dr. Buckland, the tusks may also have been applied to hook on the head to the bank, with the nostrils sustained above the water, so as to breathe securely during sleep, while the body remained floating at ease beneath the surface. Thus would he repose, moored to the margin of a lake or river—the huge body, of eighteen feet in length, with a corresponding