THE ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
[THIRD SERIES. } 
ee heceeusnessatecns ss per litora spargite muscum, 
Naiades, et circdm vitreos considite fontes : 
Pollice virgineo teneros hic carpite flores : 
Floribus et pictum, dive, replete canistrum. 
At vos, o Nymphe Craterides, ite sub undas ; 
Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco 
Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 
Ferte, Dez pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo,” 
N. Parthenii Giannettasii Ecl. 1. 
No. 79. JULY 1864. 
I.— Outline of the Geology of the Maltese Islands, by Dr. Lritu 
Apams, of the 22nd Regiment; and Descriptions of the Bra- 
chiopoda, by Tuomas Davinson, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S. &c. 
[ Plate I.] 
'THE Maltese Islands run from north-west to south-east ; their 
long axis, including the intermediate channels, does not exceed 
twenty-nine miles, Malta, the most southern of the chain, is 
seventeen miles long by nine miles broad. Comino is two miles 
long by one in breadth ; and Gozo, the most northern, is nine 
miles in length, with a breadth of about five miles. All the 
islands belong to one series, and, according to the latest re- 
searches, are to be considered portions of an early Miocene equi- 
valent to the Hempstead beds in England *, and of the middle 
Tertiaries of the south of France, north of Italy, Doberg bei 
.Biinde in Westphalia, and the Urchin-beds of Bonifacio and 
elsewhere in Corsicat. 
The formations are sedimentary and marine, with a horizontal 
stratification, and are all conformable. The greatest thickness 
of the deposits equals nearly 800 feet above the sea-level. The 
* Prof. E. Forbes, Proc. Geol. Soe. vol. iv. p. 232. 
+ Wright, on Fossil Echinodermata of Malta and Gozo, ‘Ann. & Mag. 
Nat. Hist.’ vol. xv., 1855. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xiv. 1 
