ON MALTESE FOSSILIKEROUS CAVES. 461 



blocks, or strewn along with the other animal remains. Several skulls of 

 elephants with the toeth m situ were found impacted between blocks as if 

 they had been retained by means of rock which had fallen on them with 

 considerable force, as was further testified by the underljing mass having been 

 cracked by the violent impact of the one above it. In one situation the right 

 lower ramus of an elephant, almost entire, with the loss only of its condyle, 

 was found jammed between two large blocks, one of which had struck the 

 jaw at the commencement of the diasteme on the inner side, and bent the 

 anterior portion nearly at right angles. Nevertheless tusks, almost entire, 

 were often met with even among the smaller stones. The bones and the 

 teeth were for the most part covered by calcareous incrustation, taking the 

 shapes of dendiites ; and frequently the larger bones, skulls, &c. were encased 

 in layers of stalagmitic red soil, as if the hardening of the matrix had been the 

 result of decomposition of the soft parts after deposition in the gap. The 

 extent of my explorations in Eeughira gap chd not exceed a section of about 

 8 feet in thickness ; nevertheless there turned up, more especially among the 

 large blocks, teeth of upwards of twenty-four individual elephants, of all 

 ages, from the unworn crown of the calf to the last true molar of the aged. 

 Several detached bones displayed traces of former exposure to the atmosphere, 

 by the presence of cracks and honeycombed perforations. The appearance 

 presented by this remarkable collection of organic remains seems to me to indi- 

 cate clearly that the gap had at one time formed the bed of a stream subject 

 to occasional violent Hoods, which bore down whatever animal remains came 

 within its reach. The direction of this ancient torrent-bed is not now trace- 

 able beyond a few hundred feet south-westward, owing to the changes of level 

 and the advancement of the sea on the coast-line. At all events the evidence 

 is strong that the aqueous agencies which conveyed the contents of Benghira gap 

 into theii- present situation must have been of no common order or intensity, 

 whilst the blocks were not conveyed from any great distance, at a peiiod, too, 

 when the denudation of the district was about the same as at i^resent. 



My recent explorations in the Maltese post-tertiary deposits clearly de- 

 monstrate that, besides the pigmy fossil elephant, so named by the late Dr. 

 Falconer from remains collected by Captain Spratt in the cave of Zebbug, I 

 have also found undoubted remains of an elephant which attained the di- 

 mensions of a small- sized Asiatic or African species. The data from which I 

 have deduced this statement have been fully recorded in papers sent to Pro- 

 fessor Busk, where the dental characters of upwards of 120 individual ele- 

 phants, besides the bones of the trunk and extremities, are set down with 

 studied care and accuracy. I have therefore been brought to the conclusion 

 that all the elephantine remains found by me in the Maltese alluvial deposits 

 belong to one species. For example, the largest last true molar found by me 

 gave a maximum length of 8-4 inches, and breadth of 2-3 inches, which is 

 about equal to the dimensions of intermediate size between the first and 

 second true molars of the Asiatic elephant. Again, of four first milk-teeth, 

 only one of which showed well-marked signs of wear, the maximum length 

 did not exceed -55 inch, whilst that of the Asiatic is usually between -6 and 

 •7 inch. All the tusks of the Maltese elephant had perfectly straight tips, 

 and curved gently, as in the recent species. The largest yet discovered was 

 found in Mnaidra Gap. It embraced a portion of the pulp-cavity, and 4 feet 

 2 inches of the body, and had a maximum girth of 15 inches, whilst at the 

 distal fractured extremity it measured 13 inches, indicating that the species 

 could not originally have been under 5 feet in length. On comparing certain 

 vertebrae with those of the Indian elephant dissected by Blair, which was sur- 

 mised to have been 26 to 28 years of age, and of middle stature, its height 

 at the fore leg being at 8| feet, I find that the diameters of the bodies of two 



