THE COASTS OF SICILY. 153 



There is nothiiio: in this cavern meritino; the atten- 

 tion of the ordinary tourist, but it possessed a decided 

 interest in our eyes, since it presented a fine example 

 of an ossemis cavern or rather breccia, showing us at a 

 glance how some of those osseous deposits have been 

 formed in which modern science has succeeded in 

 reading the history of a world unseen by human eye. 

 It is well known what importance has been 

 assigned to fossil remains since Cuvier first opened 

 to geologists a new path of inquiry, and established 

 the science of paljBontology. These remains of an 

 extinct fauna are r-^nerally distributed through the 

 interior of different strata ; but in some localities we 

 find them collected in masses. It had already long 

 been known that the caverns of the Hartz mountains 

 and of Franconia contained masses of fossil bones ; 

 but it was shown by Dr. Buckland, one of the most 

 celebrated jxeoloofists of England, that these countries 

 were by no means peculiar in this respect. By break- 

 ing up the calcareous crust, which forms the lower 

 surface of many of the caverns, and removing the 

 pebbles and sand, which were concealed below the 

 stalagmites*, he laid bare palaeontological treasures 



* The name of Stalactites has been given to those calcareous 

 (deposits shaped like elongated cones, which are often attached to the 

 roofs of caverns, whilst the deposits of the same nature which 

 cover the soil are known by the name of stalagmites. Both these 

 deposits are formed by the water which filters from the rock, and 

 which dissolves a certain quantity of calcareous salts, which it 

 leaves as it flows off drop by drop, and evaporates on coming in 

 contact with the air. Every stalactite must therefore have its cor- 

 responding stalagmite, but while the former increases inccessantly 

 from above doAvnwards, the latter increases from below upwards, 



