in the neighbourhood of the Pieta, Malta. 25 



able to determine the genus or species of animal to which it be- 

 longed. It was found (after we had been at work about three 

 weeks) imbedded in the dense and tenacious clay. But a more 

 singular discovery was made a day or two after ; a piece of 

 hard and very heavy stone, about four inches in length, and 

 two and a half in width. It was irregularly fractured at the 

 back and at the edges, but on the other and larger side reduced 

 to what may be called a smooth surface ; that is to say, smooth 

 with the exception of the traces of the instrument which had 

 been employed for the purpose of giving it an even surface ; 

 these traces are very distinctly observable upon it. This stone, 

 like many others which were found imbedded in the same clay, 

 was covered with a black fuliginous varnish, a mark of au- 

 thenticity which, if I had had any suspicion of the good faith 

 of the workmen, would have been sufficient to remove it. It 

 was entrusted to a lapidary, who has carefully polished one of 

 the edges, the rest of the stone being left in the state in which it 

 was found, with its varnish untouched. He declares it to be 

 what they call a pietfa dura, of the hardness of a jasper or hone. 



Stones exactly of the same quality have been procured for 

 me by favour of the lapidary above mentioned. They were 

 found near St Julian's imbedded in a red earth. Having exa- 

 mined their natural fractures, none of them were found to bear 

 any resemblance to the surface which I supposed to have been 

 p reduced artificially. 



Chalk is nowhere to be traced in the existing strata of the 

 island, but nodules of perfect chalk occurred frequently in the 

 clay ; it is singular, however, that no fragment of flint has 

 been found to accompany it. Another circumstance worthy 

 of remark is this ; that a slip of the rock is distinctly percepti- 

 ble, extending from top to bottom, at the extremity of the ma- 

 jor axis of the whole cavity ; the rock itself being unbroken and 

 perfectly solid till we descend to the level of the sea, where we 

 find it broken and disjoined to such a degree as to have occasion- 

 ed great difficulty, and made many precautions necessary for 

 the safety of the workmen : this disruption must have been ante- 

 rior to, or at least cotemporary with, the rush of turbid water 

 in which the clay was suspended, since in nearly all those places 

 where the rock is discovered to be in a broken and shattered 



