Lower Miocene of Germany.—_Rupelian Clay of Hermsdorf, near Berlin._—Professor Beyrich has described a mass of clay, used for making tiles, within seven miles of the gates of Berlin, near the village of Hermsdorf, rising up from beneath the sands with which that country is chiefly overspread. This clay is more than forty feet thick, of a dark bluish-grey colour, and, like that of Rupelmonde, contains septaria. Among other shells, the _Leda Deshayesiana,_ before mentioned (Fig. 156), abounds, together with many species of _ Pleurotoma, Voluta,_ etc., a certain proportion of the fossils being identical in species with those of Rupelmonde. _Mayence Basin._—An elaborate description has been published by Dr. F. Sandberger of the Mayence tertiary area, which occupies a tract from five to twelve miles in breadth, extending for a great distance along the left bank of the Rhine from Mayence to the neighbourhood of Manheim, and which is also found to the east, north, and south-west of Frankfort. M. De Koninck, of Liege, first pointed out to me that the purely marine portion of the deposit contained many species of shells common to the Kleyn Spawen beds, and to the clay of Rupelmonde, near Antwerp. Among these he mentioned _Cassidaria depressa, Tritonium argutum,_ Brander (_T. flandricum,_ De Koninck), _ Tornatella simulata, Aporrhais Sowbyi, Leda Deshayesiana_ (Fig. 156), _Corbula pisum,_ (Fig. 158) and others. Lower Miocene Beds of Croatia.—The Brown Coal of Radaboj, near Angram in Croatia, not far from the borders of Styria, is covered, says Von Buch, by beds containing the marine shells of the Vienna basin, or, in other words, by Upper Miocene or Falunian strata. They appear to correspond in age to the Mayence basin, or to the Rupelian strata of Belgium. They have yielded more than 200 species of fossil plants, described by the late Professor Unger. These plants are well preserved in a hard marlstone, and contain several palms; among them the Sabal, Fig. 151, p. 237, and another genus allied to the date-palm _ Phœnicites spectabilis._ The only abundant plant among the Radaboj fossils which is characteristic of the Upper Miocene period is the _Populus mutabilis,_ whereas no less than fifty of the Radaboj species are common to the more ancient flora of the Lower Molasse of Switzerland. Fig. 157: Vanessa Pluto.