THE ANNALS 



um 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[TITTRD SERIES.] 



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No. 79. JLLV li64. 



I. —Outline of the Geohay of ike Maltne Jekmb, by Dr. Lkith 

 Adams, of the 22Dd Regiment; and Deeer^ptione of the Bra' 

 chiopoda, by Thomas Daviimon, £«]., P.R.S., F.G.S. &e. 



[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 roost southern of the chain, is 

 seventeen miles long by nine miles broad. Comino is two miles 

 long by one in breadth ; and Goto, the most northern, is nine 

 miles m 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 

 Tcrtiaries of the south of France, north of Italy, Doberg bei 

 Biinde in Westphalia, and the Urchin-beds of Bonifacio and 

 elsewhere in Corsicaf. 



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. Tlie 



• Prof. E. Forbes, Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. it. p. 232. 

 t Wright, on Fossil Echinodcnnata of Malta and Gozo, ' Ann. k Mag. 

 Nat. Ihst.' vol. XT., 1855. 



Ann. ^- Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xiv. 1 



