448 ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE 
At the Castle Rock of Nice, the bones occur in two distinct 
states ; one forming a very hard indurated brescia, the paste of 
which varies from a brown to a colour almost black; in the 
other they are loose, or feebly agglutinated, by means of calca- 
reous infiltration, with fragments of limestone and sea-shells, 
showing that the sea still continued its operations when the re- 
volution which occasioned this deposite took place. 
That the sea had retired and again risen, or that a wave had 
flowed over this quarter, and in retiring had drawn these de- 
bris along with it, is most probable, as there appear to be se- 
veral fissures very different from those formerly mentioned. 
Some containing a few dispersed fragments of bones, and 
others nothing but loose earth and stones, and which pro- 
bably had been produced ‘by some convulsion long after the 
formation of the Mediterranean marble; but at a period previ- 
ous to, or perhaps contemporaneous with, the revolution 
which brought together the remains of so many different ani- 
mals. 
On referring to Colonel Imnie’s paper, in the 4th volume of 
the Transactions of this Society, it appears that the bone bres- 
cias of Nice are in their construction quite analogous to those 
of Gibraltar, excepting that they are accompanied with traces 
of marine animals ;—while nothing but terrestrial testacea are 
noticed as accompanying the other. This forms a striking 
distinction between them; but it is one which tends rather to 
involve than to elucidate the history of their formation. 
Some individuals have been anxious to bring down the ope- 
rations of nature in the formation of the rocks in this vicinity, 
even-to a period subsequent to the civilization of mankind ; and 
SavssurE mentions a story related to him by the French Con- 
sul in 1787, respecting a copper nail which was said to have 
been found in the heart of a solid mass of limestone. Some- 
thing 
—_—. 
