regarding the Bone Caves of Palermo. 283 



tour will commence, and that I will begin to make observa- 

 tions for myself. I have already seen much to interest me in 

 Palermo and its environs. The town, which is handsome, con- 

 taining two magnificent streets which run at right angles to 

 each other, and many fine public buildings, is situated in the 

 centre of a beautiful bay, which opens to the north-east, and is 

 flanked on both sides by steep rugged mountains coming close 

 down to the shore ; behind it extends a rich plain, bearing 

 olives, figs, vines, a profusion of oleanders in full flower, the 

 aloe, the cactus, and other plants of a hot climate, and fields of 

 corn, great part of which is already cut ; and this is encircled, 

 at the distance of from one to two miles from the shore, by a 

 fine amphitheatre of steep rugged limestone hills. The whole 

 plain is composed of horizontal beds of the newest tertiary, or, 

 if you please, quaternary system, containing in many places 

 numerous shells of existing Mediterranean species. The hills, 

 some of which have a very considerable elevation (I should 

 suppose at least 1300 feet), consist of magnesiferous limestone, 

 and, like the dolomites of northern Italy and Germany, present 

 scarcely any trace of stratification, but are split, generally at 

 very high angles, by numerous rents, and possessing in many 

 places the cellular and fissured structure of true dolomite. 

 They contain several caverns at no great distance from Palermo, 

 in some of which bones of the large extinct diluvian quadrupeds 

 have been found. These were for a long time believed by the 

 good people of Palermo to have belonged to the ancient race of 

 giants who inhabited this island in early ages ; but upon the 

 discovery of their being really the bones of elephants and hip- 

 popotami, they contended that they must be the remains of 

 these animals killed in the Roman games, and it was only lately 

 that Cuvier's report upon a collection which had been sent to 

 him, forced them to adopt the orthodox creed of their antedilu- 

 vian origin. A memoir on one of the caves has just been pub- 

 lished by Signor Scina, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the 

 University of Palermo, which contains an accurate, although 

 not a very clear, description of it, and requires many additional 

 details to make it of value to the geological reader. I have al- 

 ready examined the caves, and have found them to possess the 

 greatest interest. They must be referred to the bone breccias 



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