University of Virginia Library

A VISIT TO ŒNINGEN
BY PROFESSOR T. D. A. COCKERELL
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

AS the Rhine broadens on its approach to the Lake of Constance or Boden Sea it flows through a region made classic by the researches of scientific men. Here at low tide it is sometimes possible to see wooden piles which in prehistoric times supported the houses of the lake-dwelling folk, whose work is so well represented in various museums, especially at Zürich. From the river, on each side, the land rises rapidly, and the rounded summits of the hills are well wooded. It is on the left side of the Rhine, about two and a half miles below the town of Stein, that we come to the famous locality for Miocene fossils, the European representative of our Florissant in Colorado.

In all the books the fossil beds are said to be at Œningen, which is the name of a once celebrated Augustinian monastery about two miles away. Actually, however, the locality is above the village of Wangen, which is situated on the north bank of the river. In some quite recent writings Œningen (Wangen) is referred to as being in Switzerland; it is in Baden, though the opposite bank of the Rhine is Swiss. The error is natural, since the fossils have chiefly been made known by the great Swiss paleontologist Heer, of Zürich, and the best general account of them is to be found in his book "The Primæval World of Switzerland,'' of which an excellent English translation appeared in 1876.

It was at the Œningen quarries, in the eighteenth century, that a wonderful vertebrate fossil, some four feet long, was discovered. A writer of that period, Scheuchzer, announced it as >Homo diluvii testis, a man witness of the deluge! Cuvier knew better, and was able to demonstrate its relationship to the giant salamanders of Eastern Asia and North America. It forms, in fact, a distinct genus of Cryptobranchidæ, which Tschudi, apparently mindful of the early error, named Andrias; though the proper name of the animal appears to be Proteocordylus scheuchzeri (Holl.). The stone at Wangen was used for building purposes, and at one time there were three or four quarries actively worked. In earlier times the larger fossils naturally attracted most attention, fishes, snakes, trutles, fresh-water clams and a variety of leaves and fruits. Such specimens were saved, and were sold and distributed to many museums. The supply was good, yet at times not sufficient for the market; so the monks at Œningen, and others, would carve artificial fossils out of the soft rock, coating them with a brown stain prepared from unripe walnut shells. In later years, during the middle part of the nineteenth century, the period of Darwin, the great importance and interest of the fossil beds came to be better appreciated. Dr. Oswald Heer, professor at Zürich, an accomplished botanist and entomologist,

did perhaps nine tenths of the work, describing plants, insects, arachnids and part of the Crustacea. The fishes were described by Agassiz, and later by Winkler. The remaining vertebrates were principally made known by E. von Meyer.

From 1847 to 1853 Heer published in three parts a great work on fossil insects, largely concerned with those from Œningen.[1] In this and later writings he made known 464 species from this locality; but in the latest edition of "The Primæval World of Switzerland'' it is stated that there are 844 species, 384 of these being supposedly new, and named, if at all, only in manuscript.

My wife and I, having worked a number of years at Florissant, were very anxious to see the corresponding European locality for fossil insects. The opportunity came in 1909, when we were able to make a short visit to Switzerland after attending the Darwin celebration at Cambridge. We went first to Zürich, where in a large hall in the University or Polytechnicum we saw Heer's collections. A bust of Heer stands in one corner, while one end of the room is covered by a large painting by Professor Holzhalb, representing a scene at Œningen as it may have appeared in Miocene times, showing a lake with abundant vegetation on its shores, and appropriate animals in the foreground. Numerous glass-covered cases contain the magnificent series of fossils, both plants and animals. Dr. Albert Heim, professor of geology and director of the Geological Museum, was most kind in showing us all we wanted to see, and giving advice concerning the precise locality of the fossil beds. Professor Heim is an exceedingly active and able geologist, but neither he nor any one else has continued the work of Heer, whose collections remain apparently as he left them. The 384 supposedly new insects are still undescribed, with a few possible exceptions. I had time only to critically examine the bees, of which I found three ostensibly new forms. Of these, one turned out to be a wasp, [2] one was unrecognizable, but the third was a valid new species, and was published later in The Entomologist. There can be no doubt that Heer was too ready to distinguish species of insects in fossils which were so poorly preserved as to be practically worthless, consequently part of those he published and many of those he left unpublished will have to be rejected. Nevertheless, the Œningen materials are extremely valuable, both for the number of species and the good preservation of some of them. All should be carefully reexamined, and the entomologist who will give his time to this work will certainly be rewarded by many interesting discoveries.

Provided with instructions from Professor Heim, we started on August 4 for Wangen, going by way of Constance. Thanks to the map furnished by the Swiss railroad, we had no difficulty in finding the

Rosegarten Museum in Constance, which contains so many interesting fossils and archeological specimens from the surrounding region. At the moment we arrived, the old man in charge was about to go to lunch, and we were assured that it was impossible to get into the museum. It was then or never for us, however; and when the necessary argument had been presented, the curator not only let us in, but remained with us to point out all the objects of interest, showing a great deal of pride in the collection. The series of Œningen fossils could not, of course, rival that at Zürich; but it contained a great many remarkable things, including some excellent insects. We then boarded the river steamer, and, passing through the Unter Sea, reached the small village of Wangen in the course of the afternoon. This is not a tourist resort of any consequence;

FIG. 1. THE "FISCHLEIN,'' Lepidocottus brevis (Agassiz), showing (at x) its meal of Planorbis declivis A. Br.

[Description: Photograph of a fish-like stone fossil. A head (facing left), vertebra and tail are clearly visible.]

the local guide book refers to it as follows: "Wangen (with synagogue). Half an hour to the east is the Castle of Marbach, now a well-appointed sanatorium for disorders of the nerves and heart. To the west the romantic citadel Kattenhorn, formerly used as a rendezvous by notorious highwaymen (at present in the possession of a pensioned off German officer).'' The guide continues, calling our attention to "Oberstaad. Formerly a castle, now a weaving mill for hose. Above it (448 meters) the former celebrated Augustine monastery Oehningen. Near by interesting and curious stone fossils are found.'' Thus the visitor is likely to be misled as to the whereabouts of the fossils, the tradition that they are at Œningen having misled the author of the guide. At Wangen we found a small but most excellent hotel conducted by George Bräuer, where we hastily secured a room, and went out to hunt the fossil beds. We were to walk over half an hour northward, up the hill, and look for the quarries near the top of the high terrace above the village. This we did, but at first without result. We passed a small grassy pit, where some of the rock was visible, but it did not look at all promising. We went back and forth, and up the hill, until we were practically on the top. The country was beautiful, and by the roadside we found magnificent red slugs (Arion ater var. lamarckii[3]) and many fine snails, including the so-called Roman snail, Helix pomatia. We accosted the peasants, and enquired about the "fossilen.'' The word seemed to have no meaning for them, so we tried to elucidate it in the manner of the guide: where were the "stein fossilen''? Immediately, with animation, we were shown a road going westward to the town of Stein, where, it was naturally assumed, the object of our enquiry would be found. Quite discouraged, we wandered down the hill until we came to the pit we had noticed when going up. Close by was a neat little cottage, and it occurred to us to try our luck there as a last resort. We were glad indeed when there appeared at the door an educated man, who in excellent Shakespearian English volunteered at once to show us the fossil beds. It was Dr. Ernst Bacmeister, a man of considerable note in his own country, whose life and deeds are duly recorded in "Wer ist's?'' He came, with his wife and child, to Wangen in the summer time, to enjoy these exquisite surroundings, where he could write happily on philosophical subjects, without much danger of interruption. Dr. Bacmeister informed us that the poor little pit close by was in fact one of the noted quarries, with the sides fallen in and the debris overgrown with herbage. A short distance away we were shown the others, in the same discouraging condition.

One could see that there had once been considerable excavations, but the good layers were now deeply covered by talus, and could only be exposed

after much digging. It was about thirty years since the pits had been worked. Dr. Bacmeister found for us a strong country youth, Max Deschle, who dug under our direction all next day in the quarry near the house. The rock is not so easy to work as that at Florissant, and it does not split so well into slabs, but we readily found a number of fossils. Most numerous were the plants; leaves of cinnamon (Cinnamomurn polymorphum), soapberry (Sapindus falcifolius), maple (Acer trilobatum), grass (Poacites lœvis) and reeds (Phragmites œningensis), with twigs of the conifer Glyptostrobus europœus. We obtained a single seed of the very characteristic Podogonium knorrii. Certain molluscs were abundant; Planorbis declivis, Lymnœa pachygaster, Pisidium priscum, with occasional fragments of the mussel Anodonta lavateri. Ostracods, Cypris faba, were also found. The best find, however, was a well-preserved fish, the Lepidocottus brevis (Agassiz), showing in the region of the stomach its last meal, of Planorbis declivis. This greatly interested Max, who during the rest of the day chanted, as he swung the pick, "Fischlein, Fischlein, komme!''—but no other Fischlein was apparently within hearing distance. Not a single insect was obtained, except that on the talus at one of the other quarries I picked up a poorly preserved beetle, apparently the Nitidula melanaria of Heer.

We left Wangen on the morning of August 6, and proceeded up the Rhine to Schaffhausen and Basle. At Basle we found a certain number of Œningen (Wangen) fossils in the museum.

Comparing Wangen with Florissant, it appears that the Colorado locality is more extensive, more easily worked, and provides many more well-preserved fossils. On the other hand, Wangen has proved far richer in vertebrates and crustacea, and on the whole gives us a better idea of the fauna as it must have existed. Florissant far exceeds Wangen in the number of described species, but this is only because it has so many more insects. Each locality furnishes us with extraordinarily rich materials, enabling us to picture the life of Miocene times. Each, by comparison, throws light on the other, and while the period represented is not sufficiently remote to show much evidence of progressive evolution, it is hard to exaggerate the value of the facts for students of geographical distribution. Much light may also be thrown on the relative stability of specific characters.

Work on the Florissant fauna is going forward, though not so fast as one could wish. It is very much to be hoped that the Wangen quarries will receive attention before many years have passed. Labor is comparatively cheap in Germany, and with a force of a dozen men it would not take long to open up the quarries and get at the best beds. It is really extraordinary that no one has seen and taken advantage of the opportunities presented. Probably no obstacles of any consequence would be put in the way; at least the owner of the quarries came by when we were digging, and expressed only his good will. With new researches in the field, combined with studies of the rich materials awaiting examination at Zürich and elsewhere, no doubt the knowledge we possess of the European Miocene fauna could be very greatly increased, to the advantage of all students of Tertiary life.