MALTESE CAVES. 



261 



elevated parts of the floor, but was several inches in thickness in the hollows. 

 Large pillars of stalactite depended from the roof, and one central mass at 

 the furthest limits of the adit, with its lower end resting on the black seam, 

 seemed to divide the cave into two parts. On the eastern side of this pillar 

 there was a deposit of black earth lying on the seam, through which ran a 

 stratum of organic remains fully a foot in depth, rising upward towards the 

 above-mentioned gap on the side of the cave near the roof. In this corner, 

 and on a surface not 2 feet square, lay the left ramus of the lower jaw and 

 tooth of a young Pigmy Elephant with several detached teeth, one cervical 

 and six dorsal vertebrae of the animal, besides bats' bones, and bones and 

 skulls of large water birds, and a vast assemblage of the remains of the Dor- 

 mouse, together with very perfect specimens of land shells, all huddled toge- 

 ther among minute fragments and splinters of bones. Poth the deposit and 

 organic remains in this side of the cave showed clearly that they had been en- 

 veloped by the slow introduction of the black loam, which was soon hardened 

 by calcareous drippings, in fact that the pillar of stalactite here divided the 

 cave into a wet and dry side (Plate III. fig. 4). On the western or wet side 

 of the pillar very different causes had evidently been at work. The soil there 

 was loose and mixed with the rounded pebbles of calcareous sandstone, only 

 the latter were larger than any I had met with before, but like them they 

 were nearly all hardened by calcareous infiltrations. Among the stones and 

 clay numerous teeth and fragments of tusks and heads of bones of the Ele- 

 phant were found. The organic remains seemed most abundant near the 

 bottom of this fossiliferous deposit, which varied from 6 to 7 feet in thick- 

 ness, and from 5 to 6 feet in breadth ; but fragments of bones and plaits of 

 teeth were met with even on the upper limits of the stratum close to the 

 stalactite of the roof, which was upwards of 3 feet in thickness. 



Such was the sequence of the various deposits in the Mnaidra Cave from 

 below upwards, and for the distance of 54 feet inwards to the limits of my 

 excavations ; and how much further remains to be seen, as from the great 

 heat of the weather and the Association's grant being expended, I have 

 been obliged to defer any further researches until the return of the cold 

 months, when I propose tracing the fossiliferous stratum to its limits. The 

 Mnaidra Cave at its entrance measured 22 feet in height, and about 11 feet 

 in breadth, when it gradually expanded and contracted, expanding a second 

 time at the termination of the excavation, where its height was about the 

 same as at the entrance, and breadth fully 13 feet. The sides of the cave 

 were smooth, excepting where horizontal fissures formed gaping rents, into 

 which the fossiliferous deposits had been washed, and much water and the 

 finer portion of the clay introduced. The entire roof of this cave had evi- 

 dently been cleared away from the entrance to the limits of the explorations, 

 leaving merely the stalactite, and here and there a portion of the parent 

 rock, the interstices being filled with soil drifted from the slope above, 

 and composed of red earth and disintegrated fragments of the rock surfaces 

 around. In this deposit I found remains of the great Dormouse, which I had 

 previously met with in the stalactite on the roofs of other caves and superfi- 

 cial deposits in other situations in the island, all leading towards the belief 

 that the above-named rodent may have lived on the area up to comparatively 

 modern times. 



10. With reference to the organic remains in this cave, it will readily be 

 surmised, from what has been already stated, that the most prominent be- 

 longed to Elephas melitensis and Myoxus melitensis, just as the Hippopotamus 



