Recent Changes in the Mediterranean Sea 
connection through the islands of Sicily and Malta, according to Wallace, the animals inhabiting the 
European Continent gained access into Africa, and as they consisted chiefly of genera more powerful 
or ferocious than those then inhabiting that continent (mainly Lemurs) drove them southward, and 
ultimately exterminated them on the mainland. The remains of the genera of invaders have been 
discovered in the caves of Sicily and Malta and have been fully described by Admiral Spratt and Dr. 
Leith Adams. Two species of Aippopotami have been described from the Malta caves, as also two species 
of elephant (E/ephas antiquus and E. melitensis). They appear to have inhabited the district in enormous 
numbers ; remains of several hundred individuals having been collected by Adams alone. In the Sicilian 
district these animals were not less numerous, as shown by the bones of dos, cervus, ursus, canis and felis, 
and other carnivores ; most of which are recognised inhabitants of Africa at the present day. 
The conclusions arrived at by the authors above quoted are identical, and can scarcely be contested. 
They consider that there was a general uprise of this part of the Mediterranean basin at, or towards the 
close of, the Miocene period, by which Europe was joined to Africa; those portions of the bed of the 
sea surrounding Sicily and Malta having been at this period in a condition of dry land. The extent of 
the upheaval between Sicily and Tunis would be (at the present day) 1500 feet, but may have been less 
in Pliocene times. 
Similar evidence of the uprise of the sea-bed is derived from other islands. Thus remains of foxes 
are found in Minorca; while those of hares, martens, deer, and foxes have been discovered in Corsica and 
Sardinia. It is only by the uprise of the sea-bed and connection with the mainland in past times that 
we can account for such numerous remains in these islands.” 
The subject of the uplift of the Mediterranean basin by which the existing islands were extended in 
size and connected with North Africa is recognised by Dr. R. F. Scharff in his treatise on the European 
animals and illustrated by numerous examples of such connection.? We have already seen how the fauna 
of Sicily, Sardinia, and Malta have yielded remains of large mammals which must have required areas of 
range greatly larger than the present islands in order to support their aboriginal inhabitants. The examina- 
tion, by Dr. Forsyth Major, of the caves of the island of Elba, and other islands belonging to the Tuscan 
archipelago, led to the discovery in them of the remains of several large mammals, such as the deer, bear, 
antelope, and horse.* It is manifest that these small islands could not have supported such a fauna as this ; 
they must have formed the unsubmerged portions of a larger land area within recent geological times.® 
But this community of mammalia between the islands of the Mediterranean and North Africa is not 
confined to the larger forms, but extends to the reptilia and amphibia, as also to the mollusca; and to 
such an extent has been this community of forms as to induce Dr. Major to apply to the faunistic 
province the term “ Tyrrhenis.”° Thus the great uplift of the Pliocene and Post-Pliocene periods is 
abundantly confirmed by the discoveries of the remains of extinct animals found in the caves. 
Advancing Cold in Europe—If we inquire the cause of the crowding of these and other forms of 
mammalia in the southern borders of Europe, and the invasion of Africa by them in the Pliocene period, 
the answer is to be found in the fact of the advancing cold in the northern parts of the Continent owing 
directly to the increased elevation of the land, and the consequent accession of snow and ice on the 
mountainous regions, which culminated in the glacial conditions of the succeeding Pleistocene period. 
These will form the subject of a future chapter. Towards the solution of the problem of the cause of the 
“Great Ice Age,” which has been attempted by so many writers in recent times, all our conclusions 
regarding land elevation clearly point, and will occupy our attention. 
1 Adams, Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta, Edinburgh, 1870, also “On the Dentition of the Maltese Fossi! Elephants,” Trams. 
Zool. Soc., London, vol. ix. (1873). 
2 Jamieson, Geslgical Magazine, May 1885, p. 199. 8 Scharff, European Animals (Constable & Co., 1907). 
+ Major, On the Caves of the Tuscan Archipelago. 5 Scharff, European Animals, p. 213. 6 Ibid. p. 214. 
