S12 Brigadier Silvertop's Sketch of tJte Tertiart/ Formation 



In terminating this slight notice of the tertiary formation iiv 

 the vicinity of Malaga, it is important to mention, that the sea, 

 for many years, has been retiring from the line of coast. Within 

 the memory of men now Uving, vessels anchored where a por- 

 tion of the town of Malaga, and its beautiful Alameda, bordered 

 by two lines of splendid houses, are situated. The site of the 

 old sea-gate, El Puerto del Mar, and parts or fragments of the 

 Moorish wall, formerly washed by the waters of the Mediterra- 

 nean, are still more retired from the present shore. 



Velez-Malaga, — In following the coast-road easterly from 

 Malaga, this is the first little town met with, at the distance of 

 about twenty miles from the former. Five miles before reach- 

 ing Velez-Malaga, the road passes a fort called El Castillo del 

 Marquez, built upon the beach, between which and the moun- 

 tainous district towards the north, there is a httle low interven- 

 ing tract belonging to the tertiary formation. The beds that 

 form it consist of a hard quartzose sandstone, often taking a 

 conglomerate character, and abounding in pectens, fragments of 

 ostreae, balani, and some other shells, which is quarried, and sup- 

 plied the material for building the great mole at Malaga. Other 

 tertiary beds iiear Velez-Malaga are made up of sand and com- 

 minuted shells loosely consolidated together, shelly conglomerate 

 and sandy loam. 



Pursuing the road to A^elez-Malaga, a group of mica-slate 

 hills, which here come down to the beach, is crossed, after which 

 the latter is bordered for some distance by a considerable and 

 high eminence, formed of tertiary beds, from whose summit 

 there is a long gradual slope inland, or towards the north. 

 Along a sort of hollow, consequently, formed between this ter- 

 tiary eminence towards the south, and the mountainous district 

 of mica-slate, progressively increasing in elevation towards the 

 north, the road proceeds towards Velez-Malaga, and at a point 

 where it makes a bend, and commences its descent to the Rio 

 de Velez, a curious instance of the immediate contact of two va- 

 rieties of conglomerate rocks of very different ages and composi- 

 tion was observed, which seems to argue the very modern date 

 of the uppermost or superior tertiary beds, or of group 2, along 

 this line of coast. 



