plinthite

[Gr. plinthos = a tile; suff. -ite ( Min.).] Min.: A clay occurring in County Antrim; color, brick-red. Composition: A hydrated silicate of alumina and sesquioxide of iron. pli-o-, pref. [PLIOCENE.) Belonging to the Pliocene Age. pli-o-çēne, plei-o-çēne, a. [Gr. pleiōn =more, and kainos recent.] Geol.: The epithet applied by Sir Charles Lyell to the most modern of the three periods into which he divided the Tertiary. Its distinguishing character is that the larger part of the fo il shells are of recent species. Lyell divides it into the Older and the Newer Pliocene. In the Older, the extinct species of shells form a large minority of the whole: in the Newer, the shells are almost all of living pliohippus species. Deshayes and Lyell considered that the Older Pliocene had 35 per cent, and the Newer 90 to 95 per cent. of the shells of recent species. Ethe ridge makes the number 40 to 60 per cent. for the Older and 80 for the Newer Pliocene. There is a rich Pliocene flora in Italy. Mr. Gaudin and the Marquis Strozzi enumerate pine, oak, evergreen oak, plum, plane, elder, fig, laurel, maple, walnut, birch, buckthorn, . In the British Phocene or Crag, Ethe ridge enumerates 328 genera, and 1,103 species of animals; thirty genera, and fifty-seven species are mammal i a. Both Vesuvius and Etna were in operation. In Mull there are plutonic rocks (granites and syenites) of this comparatively recent age. The climate, at first temperate, was becoming severe, and the Newer Pliocene was contemporaneous with part of the Glacial Period (q. v.). porate horse.]