"_OEningen_, for instance, whose fossils of all classes have perhaps been more fully studied than those of any other locality, could not have enjoyed, during that period, a tropical or even a subtropical climate, such as has often been assigned to it, if we can at all rely upon the indications of its Flora; for this is so similar to that of Charleston, South Carolina, that the highest mean annual temperature we can ascribe to the Miocene epoch in central Europe must be reduced to about 60° Fah.; that is to say, we infer from its fossil vegetation that OEningen had, during the Tertiary times, the climate of the warm temperate zone, the climate of Rome, for instance, and not even that of the northern shores of Africa. We are led to this conclusion by the following argument:--The same isothermal line which passes at present through OEningen, at the 47th degree of northern latitude, passes also through Boston, lat. 42°. Supposing now (as the geological structure of the two continents and the form of their respective outlines at that period seem to indicate), that the undulations of the isothermal lines which we notice in our days existed already during the Tertiary period, or, in other words, that the differences of temperature which exist between the western shores of Europe and the eastern shores of North America, were the same at that time as now, we shall obtain the mean annual temperature of that age by adding simply the difference of mean annual temperature which exists between Charleston and Boston (12° Fah.) to that of OEningen, which is 48° Fah., as modern OEningen agrees almost precisely with Boston, making it 60° Fah.; far from looking to the northern shores of Africa for an analogy, which the different character of the respective vegetations would render still less striking. The mean annual temperature of OEningen, during the Tertiary period, would not therefore differ more from its present mean than that of Charleston differs from that of Boston."--_Agassiz_, _on Lake Superior_, p. 150. Footnote A: The characteristic genera Lagomys, Cheldyra, and the large Salamanders with permanent gills, remind us of the fossils of OEningen, for the present fauna of Japan, as well as the Liquidambar, Carya, Taxodium, Gleditschia, &c., &c.