55 



On Fossil Echinoderms from the Island of Malta ; with Notes on 

 the stratigraphical distribution of the Fossil Organisms in (In- 

 Maltese beds. By THOMAS WRIGHT, M.D. &c., Professor of 

 the Natural Sciences in the Cheltenham Grammar School. 



READ HTH SEPTEMBER 1854. 



A. Notes on the Maltese beds, with the species they contain. 



THE Island of Malta is entirely composed of tertiary rocks of 

 Miocene age, which have been described by Capt. Spratt, R.N.*, 

 and surveyed and mapped by the Earl Ducie t- Through his 

 lordship's kindness, we have been enabled to study a complete 

 suite of Maltese rock specimens, together with an extensive col- 

 lection of the fossils obtained from them, whilst resident in the 

 island ; and it is but just that we should state, at the outset of 

 these remarks, that whatever is valuable in this memoir relating 

 to the stratigraphical distribution of the Urchins and other 

 fossils in these beds, is entirely due to the Earl Ducie, who has 

 most liberally given us all the information he noted on the spot, 

 relative to the range and distribution of the species. It is to 

 be distinctly understood, however, that neither the measurement 

 of the beds, nor the limitation of the range of the fossils in 

 them, are given as absolute truths, but rather as the nearest 

 approximation thereto which the present state of our knowledge 

 permits. 



The Maltese islands comprise Malta, Gozo, and Cumino. 

 Malta is seventeen miles in length by seven in breadth ; Gozo 

 is nine in length by five in breadth ; and Cumino about two 

 in length by one in breadth. The direction of their long axis 

 is S.E. and N.W., which, with the channels, is about twenty-nine 

 miles in length. All the rocks are sedimentary and marine, having 

 a vliLcht inclination from N.E. to E.N.E. ; their direction corre- 

 sponds with that of the Apennines, and with the intermediate 



* " On the Geology of the Maltese Islands," with Notes on the Fossils 

 by Prof. E. Forbes. Procerd. of the Geol. Soc. London, vol. iv. p. 225. 



t The Earl Ducie kindly presented a copv of this map to Mr. Good- 

 enough, book- and map-seller, Strado Reale, Malta, by whom it is now 

 being published. 



VOL. II. P 



