108 Geography, Geology, 
uninhabited; the plains are generally luxuriant, and covered 
with vegetation and cattle. Mar sh land abounds in places, 
and there the deadly malaria is found during the hot weather. 
Nothing can exceed the be eauty of the situation, and cultivation 
of the land about Messina, Catania, Syracuse, Palermo, &c., 
where nature displays, in exuberance, the fruit of the vine, the 
olive, the lemon, the orange, and other trees. The most ex- 
tensive forests or woods are at Etna, Biscari, Caronia, Cor- 
leone, Gibelmanna, Noto, and ‘Traina. 
Respecting the geology of Piel I will add the following 
outline from Protescor Remane — 
The mountains of Pelorus ne for their base granite and 
other primitive rocks. About these there extencsh an argilla- 
ceous schistose seam (clay slate), which succeeds to the eranite, 
to the gneiss, and to the micaceous schistus (mica slate). In 
some places the argillaceous schisti are bituminous. — It is in 
this formation that the metallic mines of Sicily are situated, 
and their seams extend themselves sometimes even among the 
gneiss: they are very rich in silver, lead, and copper. “Phese 
soils are covered by, and placed in the middle of, the rocks 
which contain fragments of them: they form many species of 
aggregate rocks, which have for their cement a substance 
either “argillaceo-ferruginous, or siliceous, or calcareous; these 
are evidently of a posterior formation. An immense calcareous 
deposition covers the whole island. The soils of the first form- 
ation, from the Faro of Messina to seventy miles towards the 
central places, disappear ; and, except these, the whole surface 
of Sicily consists of the intermediate formation, or of the transi- 
tion of Werner, and of others posterior to it. The aggregate 
rocks constitute heights, and great tracts of country; but all 
are subordinate to the calcareous formation. Few seams of 
primitive limestone occur amongst the gneiss, and there are 
some with pieces of mica. ‘This calcareous rock is of a fine 
grain, erey, or bluish, phosphori ic, containing alum and mag- 
nesia, sat has a few remains of marine arian stele ; the interme- 
diate (transition) limestone finally covers it, and forms the 
greatest altitudes and long tracts of country. Upon and often 
by the side of this lneStone we may observe that of a much 
finer grain, white, of a flinty fracture, and full of large pebbles, 
a little shining, with a great quantity of ancient marine ani- 
mals. ‘This secondary formation is more covered with a ter- 
tiary one, forming a somewhat calcareous tuff composed of the 
remains of marine animals, united by a weak cement, which is 
itself formed of minute pieces of the same. This shell lime- 
* See Guida dei Viaggiatori in Sicilia (Palermo, 1822), p. 13—18. 
