LA CAVERNA DI GABROVIZZA PRESSO TRIESTE 
DEL 
Dr. Carlo Marchesetti. 
i (>on sono che pochi anni che l'illustre Riccardo 
® Burton, pubblicando un lavoro sulla preistoria 
istriana, esprimevasi nel modo seguente: „I had 
always doubted, despite the robust belief of my 
friend Luciani, that a race of cave-dwellers would be found 
in this region. As a rule the troglodyte affects climates which 
are either very hot and rainless, as near the Red Sea, or cold, 
as in the north of France. Moreaver, cave-dwellers do not, 
even in our day, readily give up their cheap and confortable 
abodes; this may be seen throughout La Beance, and even at 
Saint Cime, within an hours railway-travel from Paris. Again, 
the perpetual infiltration of rain, which doubtless was more 
abundant in the days before Istria-land was disforested, must 
have made them damp and malarious, in fact very uncom- 
fortable compared with those of the chalk. The essentially 
temperate climate ot the fair peninsula, also, would suggest 
subaërial habitations and it offered peculiar facilities for buil- 
ding; limestones whose natural fracture saves the trouble of 
blasting and cutting, and abundance of wood for the rude 
wigwam. Finally, the large number of the pre-historic or 
proto-historie „Oastellieri*, which may amount to a score in the 
