THE COASTS OF SICILY. 13 



united efforts of our men, although they were 

 provided with powerful levers, were often insuffi- 

 cient to displace a stone, which, had it been free, any 

 one of our party could easily have moved with his 

 unaided hands. 



While this gradual deposition goes on, the sedi- 

 mentary rock retains and encloses in the mass small 

 isolated pebbles, and sometimes even the remains of 

 human industry. This remarkable fact, combined 

 with others of the same nature, at once explains and 

 refutes the opinions of some geologists, who have at- 

 tempted to refer the appearance of man on the 

 surface of the globe to a very remote period. The 

 sedimentary rock of Milazzo is of a very compact 

 structure, and as it fully equals in hardness the 

 primary limestone which it covers, it would be easy 

 at first sight to confound the two. The discovery in 

 rocks of recent formation of fragments of brick and 

 earthenware might, therefore, lead to the inference 

 that these remains were contemporaneous with the 

 rock itself, if one did not bear in mind that a similar 

 phenomenon is daily taking place before our eyes. 

 The incrustation of the rocks of Milazzo is a fact 

 analogous to those which have been observed on the 

 shores of some of the islands of the Archipelago, and 

 which are exhibited on a larger scale along the rocky 

 heights of Guadaloupe. Here the sea has incrusted 

 and united immense masses of sand and fragments 

 of shells, converting them into a sort of breccia. In 

 these breccias, human bones have been discovered, 

 intermixed with a few traces of a rude stage of civi- 

 lisation; but there were also found in the same deposits 



