CHAP. x. UPRAISED BED OF THE SARDINIAN SEA. 177 



greater than those which are already known to have taken 

 place within the human period on the borders of the Mediter 

 ranean, of which I shall now proceed to cite a well-authen 

 ticated example, observed in Sardinia. 



Rise of the Bed of the Sea to the Height of 300 Feet, in the 

 Human Period, in Sardinia. 



Count Albert de la Marmora, in his description of the geo 

 logy of Sardinia, * has shown that on the southern coast of 

 that island, at Cagliari and in the neighbourhood, an ancient 

 bed of the sea, containing marine shells of living species, and 

 numerous fragments of antique pottery, has been elevated 

 to the height of from seventy to ninety-eight metres above 

 the present level of the Mediterranean. Oysters and other 

 shells, of which a careful list has been published, including 

 the common mussel (Mytilus edulis), many of them having 

 both valves united, occur, embedded in a breccia in which 

 fragments of limestone abound. The mussels are often in 

 such numbers as to impart, when they have decomposed, 

 a violet colour to the marine stratum. Besides pieces of 

 coarse pottery, a flattened ball of baked earthenware, with a 

 hole through its axis, was found in the midst of the marine 

 shells. It is supposed to have been used for weighting a fish 

 ing net. Of this and of one of the fragments of ancient 

 pottery Count de la Marmora has given figures. 



The upraised bed of the sea probably belongs in this in 

 stance to the post-pliocene period, for in a bone breccia, filling 

 fissures in the rocks around Cagliari, the remains of extinct 

 mammalia have been detected ; among which is a new genus 

 of carnivorous quadruped, named Cynotherium by M. Studiati, 

 and figured by Count de la Marmora in his Atlas (pi. vii.), also 

 an extinct species of Lagomys, determined by Cuvier in 1825 



* Partie Geologique, torn. i. pp. 382, 387. 

 N 



