There is evidence here of a long
series of submarine volcanic eruptions of Eocene date, and during some of them,
as Sir R. Murchison has suggested, shoals of fish were probably destroyed by the
evolution of heat, noxious gases, and tufaceous mud, just as happened when
Graham's Island was thrown up between Sicily and Africa in 1831, at which time
the waters of the Mediterranean were seen to be charged with red mud, and
covered with dead fish over a wide area. (Principles of Geology chapter 26 9th
edition page 432.)
Associated with the marls and limestones of Monte Bolca are beds containing
lignite and shale with numerous plants, which have been described by Unger and
Massalongo, and referred by them to the Eocene period. I have already cited
(Chapter 16) Professor Heer's remark, that several of the species are common to
Monte Bolca and the white clay of Alum Bay, a Middle Eocene deposit; and the
same botanist dwells on the tropical character of the flora of Monte Bolca and
its distinctness from the sub-tropical flora of the Lower Miocene of Switzerland
and Italy, in which last there is a far more considerable mixture of forms of a
temperate climate, such as the willow, poplar, birch, elm, and others.
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