HARDWICKKS SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



269 



The quarry which we entered had been worked 

 to a depth of 400 feet ; the strata teemed with the 

 remains of echince, pectens, and other molUisca, 

 consolidated by means of the sand and mud into 

 which they had fallen, thus forming a friable sand- 

 stone of varying 'degrees of hardness and thickness. 

 I at once directed my attention to the debris that had 

 been left lying about by the quarrymen, and, after 

 a patient search, my efforts were rewarded by finding 

 a fine specimen of a tooth of the great carnivorous 

 whale (Zt'iilogdon), now extinct, and numerous 

 specimens of pectens, among which may be noted 

 Pccten cristattts and Pecten sqiiatmdosiis. 



At the entrance to the quarry was a cliff about 

 sixteen feet in height, the face of which showed in 

 a striking manner the susceptibility of the sandstone 

 stratum to the disintegrating powers of the atmos- 

 pheric agencies, chief among which we may note 

 the moist sirocco, succeeded by a burning tropical 

 sun. 



Standing out in bold relief on the crumbling sides 

 were the hard calcareous remains of myriads of 

 echinae awaiting only a touch to send them tumbling 

 down to the debris beneath. A little discrimination 

 was here necessary, as by far the majority of them 

 consisted of the species Eiipotagus koninchii, of which 

 I transferred a few of the finest to my bag, together 

 with Clypeastcr folium ; though this latter, in con- 

 sequence, no doubt, of having been subjected to 

 great compression, was in a sadly dilapidated con- 

 dition. Fully satisfied with the results of my visit, 

 I left the quarry and proceeded towards the highway, 

 examining en route the blocks of stone that had been 

 removed from the quarry and piled up by the path- 

 side prior to being sent to the mason. My attention 

 was arrested by a dark ferruginous red protuberance 

 in one of the sandstone blocks, which a closer in- 

 spection convinced j me was a fossil of some con- 

 siderable size. Paolo at once went in search of the 

 foreman of the works, and obtained from him the 

 necessary permission to cut off the portion of the 

 block that contained the treasure. A quarter of an 

 hour's labour revealed a magnificent cast of a Nautilus, 

 measuring eight inches and a quarter in length, and 

 three and a half inches in diameter, surrounded by 

 large numbers of the casts of a small mollusc (Hylse) 

 about the size and shape of a hemp seed. Just as 

 we had extracted the prize, the obliging foreman 

 came up, and, in broken English, gave me to under- 

 stand that if I followed him, he would conduct me 

 to a spot where I should find other remains which 

 he designated "antiqua." He conducted us to a 

 quarry in the immediate vicinity, and there showed 

 me several layers of what is popularly known as 

 "petrified" seaweed. This seaweed, like many 

 mosses of the species Bryum, etc., which 'are to be 

 met with in various localities in the British Isles, had 

 become incrusted with the carbonate of lime which 

 was held in solution in the sea-water that formerly 



covered them, and which, by a process of elimina- 

 tion, is extracted, and thus renders them hard and 

 brittle. 



The layers occurred at irregular intervals, both in 

 this stratum and the limestone beneath it, and they 

 served to indicate, not only that alternations of level 

 have taken place, but likewise approximately the 

 number of times and the length of the period of such 

 submergences. A half-an-hour's ride brought us 

 with our partly-filled bag to the locality in which it 

 had been my original intention to spend the day j 

 and, after a further half-an-hour of walking over the 

 rough, weather-worn surface of the lower limestone, 

 we reached the top of the mural cliffs, which here 

 descend to a depth of 400 feet to the sea level. 

 There are few fairer scenes in the Mediterranean 

 than that which is to be obtained from the top of 

 these cliffs upon a favourable day. The variegated 

 strata of all hues, alternating with the green of the 

 cultivated patches on the sides of the gorges and 

 valleys ; the rugged, sterile outlines, fretted into 

 various fantastic shapes by the ceaseless action of the 

 waters around them, and the wild rugged character 

 of the scenery in the immediate vicinity of the 

 beholder, all go to make up a picture containing the 

 most essential elements of the picturesque ; whilst 

 away to the south, at a distance of about three miles, 

 rearing its massive limestone cliffs high above the 

 surrounding waters, lay, in majestic loneliness, the 

 islet of Fifla. 



We descended the cliff side and devoted our 

 attention to objects which, though more prosaic, 

 contained none the less the elements of the beautiful 

 and picturesque. The stratum in which we were 

 about to work was that which occupies the lowest 

 place in the known series of the Maltese beds, and 

 which, whilst rising to a maximum height of about 

 400 feet above sea level, descends to an unknown 

 distance in the depths around. It consists of a hard, 

 compact cherty limestone of varying qualities, and 

 is known to local geologists as the Jower limestone, 

 to distinguish it from that stratum which, as the 

 uppermost, is known as the upper limestone. 



The characteristic organic remains are Orbitoides, 

 Orbiculinse, and small Scutellae, together with the 

 remains of NuUiporse, thickly intermingled. The 

 formation corresponds to that of Befforte and 

 Carcare in Italy, the Pectunculus beds of Hungary, 

 Merignoc in France, and the Marine Molasse in 

 Bavaria. After a short search we found the caves 

 from which, twenty-three years ago, Professor Adams 

 and the late Admiral Spratt exhumed some of the 

 first Mammalian remains, and which by a comparison 

 with those found in Sicily and Africa proved the 

 former geological relationship that existed between 

 those areas and these islands. I visited these same 

 caves, known locally as the Malak and Unadrce 

 caves, but the work of excavation had been but too 

 well done, for not a vestige of the remains of its 



