530 Mr. G. T. Baker on the distribution of 



been found in Algeria, whither it must have travelled 

 from S. Europe.* 



Now of the northern Mammalia, the mammoth is the 

 only one recorded from Spain ; it also existed in parts 

 of France and Northern Italy (range not definitely 

 known),! but in the caves of Perigord and others in 

 Central France the bones of the reindeer and musk- 

 sheep, as well as the mammoth, have been discovered. 



From all these facts we must conclude that in the 

 Pleistocene, post-Pliocene, or Quaternary Era (as it is 

 variously called), North Africa was united with Spain on 

 the one hand and Sicily on the other. 



Dumont represents — in his ' Carte Geologique de 

 I'Europe ' — that the strata opposite each other at Capes 

 Spartel and Trafalgar are both of Eocene age, and that 

 at one time they were continuous ; consequently the 

 union there was owing to a post-Eocene elevation. It 

 may, however, have been due to a post-Miocene up- 

 heaval, as Miocene strata occur in Algeria ; whilst the 

 first connection between Asia Minor and N. Africa was 

 probably in the earlier Pliocene times, after which union 

 there must have been a subsidence below the sea-level 

 when the later Pliocene beds which cover half Sicily 

 were deposited ; then again the land connection was 

 re-established at the time of the elevation of Etna and 

 Vesuvius, thus forming a migratory line for the fauna 

 of the post-Pliocene period. 



Here we see, then, two lines of migration to N. Africa 

 from Europe, the one by way of Spain and Morocco, the 

 other rid Tunis and Sicily. 



Geologists usually adopt the following plan of arriving 

 at the land contour of this period, viz., by raising the 

 land bodily 500 fathoms ; this would unite North Africa 

 and the Balearic Isles with Spain, Corsica with Tuscany, 

 Tunis with Sicily, and the heel of Italy with European 

 Turkey ; it would also convert the MgeR,n Sea into dry 

 land, and make one great tract of land from Asia Minor 

 to Greece, North Syria being united therewith by way 

 of Cyprus and Crete. The Mediterranean would thus 

 be converted into two great salt-water basins. 



*" Geology of Gibraltar," Ramsay & Geike ; 'Quart. Journal 

 Geol. Soc.,' p. 505, vol. xxxiv. "Pleistocene Mammalia," Daw- 

 kins ; Pal. Soc. : 'Cave Hunting,' ch. x. 



I Leith Adams, ' Quart. Journal Geol. Soc.,' p. 537, vol. xxxiii. 



