PHYSICAL CONDITIONS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN. 115 



Post-Miocene stage. — Tliis epoch is characterised as is well 

 known by movements of the cnist of extraordinary intensity. 

 In the Alps, as abundantly illustrated by Professors Heim, 

 Schardt, C. Schmidt, and Baltzer,* we have exhibitions of 

 prodigious movements of the crust resulting in flexures, 

 inversions, and lateral displacements or overthrusts, seldom 

 reached and never exceeded in magnitude. These Alpine 

 movements had their counterparts in the Mediterranean area 

 but in greatly diminished intensity. The general effect was 

 to elevate large areas into dry land, and to cause adjoining 

 tracts to undergo subsidence. This we may infer was the 

 epoch when the Mediterranean Avas converted into three 

 distinct basins separated by intervening land-ridges, or 

 causeways, by which Europe Avas united to Africa, and by 

 Avhich, according to Dr. Alfred Wallace, in later Pliocene 

 times the land animals of the former migrated across into 

 the African continent. The islands of Sicily and Malta 

 afford the clearest evidence of such a connection; and 

 although tlie CAadence has been fully discussed by the late 

 Admiral Spratt, and Dr. Leifh Adams, I will A-enture briefly 

 to recapitulate it liere.t 



Ossiferous Caves of Malta and Sicily. 



The eA'idence to Avhich I refer is deriA-ed from the occur- 

 rence of numerous remains of elephants, hippopotami and 

 other forms in the caves of Malta, and in those of the north 

 of Sicily. Taa^o species of Idppopotami have been described 

 from the Malta caves by Leith Adams and Spratt, a larger 

 and smaller, as also tAvo species of elejDhant (Elephas an- 

 tiqiius and E. Melitensis). They appear to haA^e inhabited 

 the district in enormous numbers, remains of several hundred 

 distinct individuals having been collected by Adams alone.f 

 In the Sicilian district these inhabitants Avere not les:^ 

 abundant. From the Grotto di Maccagnone near Palermo, 

 Dr. Falconer collected large quantities of bones of elephants 

 alid hippopotami, amongst Avhich were tAvo species of the 



* See sections and descriptions in the Livret-Guide Ge'ologique dans Ln 

 Jura et Les Alpes de la tS^dsse. Lausanne, 1894. 



t Adams, Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta. Ediu., 

 1870 ; also, On the dentition of the Maltese fossil Elephants. Trans. Zooi. 

 Soc, Lend., vol. ix, 1873. 



I Dr. Leith Adams -considers these two varieties of pachyderms lived 

 together ; on the other hand Admiial Spratt believes they inhabited tiie 

 veo'ion at successive intervals of time. 



