2 Dr. L. Adams on the Geology of the Maltese Islands. 
dip runs from about north-east to east north-east, submerging 
the lowermost bed, which, on the opposite coast-line, rises fully 
300 feet above the sea-level. The inclination is im a line with 
the Apennines and Sicilian range from the Val di Noto to 
Talizyi. Indications of great disturbances are shown by five 
great faults, four of which run in a transverse direction and 
parallel with one another. The most extensive downthrow 
traverses the entire breadth of Malta. The remaining fault 
proceeds in a north-west and south-east direction. There are, 
besides, local sinkings; and ancient sea-levels are apparent in 
several situations. 
The mineral deposits arrange themselves, from the sea-level 
upwards, in the following order :-— 
Lower Limestone. 
Caleareous Sandstone. 
Marl. 
Sand. 
Upper Limestone. 
rao SU ee 
The Upper Limestone, Sand, and Marl beds have been eom- 
pletely denuded for the eastern half of Malta and the south and 
north-western portions of Gozo. 
The Lower Limestone varies in colour and mineral consistence, 
being either compact and semicrystalline, almost amounting to 
a variegated marble, of a cream-colour, and commonly known as 
“Gozo marble,” or a white, coarse, open-grained rock, contain- 
ing hard rounded nodules, simulating an oolitic grit. On the 
south-west coasts of Malta and Gozo, the Lower Limestone at-_ 
tains a height of 300 feet above the level of the sea. A few of 
its fossils seem peculiar to the bed, but the majority range up- 
wards, and many throughout the entire series. Casts of a 
gigantic Conus, Terebratula minor, Thecidium Adamsi, together 
with Seutella subrotunda, Operculina complanata, an Orbitoides, 
&c. have as yet been met with only in the Lower Limestone and 
point of transition between this bed and the Caleareous Sand- 
stone. Among the other organic remains common to the above 
and superincumbent beds may be mentioned bones of Cetaceans, 
teeth of Carcharodon, Diodon, Myliobatis, and Pycnodont fishes, 
several species of Pecten, Ostrea, Echinus, and Cidaris, &c. 
The Calcareous Sandstone is granular, and not crystalline, in 
texture; the particles are minute, and evidently held together 
by the combined force of cohesion and pressure. The Lower 
Limestone passes into a white freestone, the latter mto a hght 
fawn-coloured rock traversed by a band of irregular-shaped 
horn-coloured nodules, which are firmly cemented together. 
Abundance of Mollusca, chiefly belonging to Pecten, are strewn 
