But I now abandon that idea for several reasons;
among others, because I succeeded in 1841 in tracing the Crag fauna southward in
Normandy to within seventy miles of the Falunian type, near Dinan, yet found
that both assemblages of fossils retained their distinctive characters, showing
no signs of any blending of species or transition of climate.
The principal grounds, however, for referring the English Crag to the older
Pliocene and the French faluns to the Upper Miocene epochs, consist in the
predominance of fossil shells in the British strata identifiable with species
not only still living, but which are now inhabitants of neighbouring seas, while
the accompanying extinct species are of genera such as characterise Europe. In
the faluns, on the contrary, the recent species are in a decided minority; and
most of them are now inhabitants of the Mediterranean, the coast of Africa, and
the Indian Ocean; in a word, less northern in character, and pointing to the
prevalence of a warmer climate. They indicate a state of things receding farther
from the present condition of Central Europe in physical geography and climate,
and doubtless, therefore, receding farther from our era in time.
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