ON ARCHiBOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MALTA. 



297 



Been from their partes still adhering there, lay in a slanting position, 

 enibedded midway into this layer, through all the foregoing and 

 projecting for over one foot over the surface. These stalactites we shall 

 call ' the large broken stalactites. ' The organic remains found in this 

 Jayer were as follows. Just at the top of it human remains were met 

 with; these consisted of four phalanges, a metacarpal bone, a milk 

 molar, and one of the first bicuspids. Land shells were also met with 

 in abundance at this level and a little further down : the majority of 

 them were much fractured, and all of them so friable as to be very 

 difficult to extract. I managed, however, to obtain seven or eight 

 nearly perfect specimens. I compared these with those met with by 

 Cooke when he excavated this cave, and I found them quite different. 

 In size these shells (fig. la) are equal to the Helix vermiculaia ; in 

 shape, however, they are identical with the Helix melitensis (fig. 2a). 



1^?3 



'N'^V 



Nat. Size. 



N°2°^ 



This struck me so much that I asked the opinion of my friend the 

 Contino Dr. R. Caruana Gatto, who is the first authority on the land 

 shells of these islands, and he considers them to be a new undescribed 

 variety which he denotes as var. Despottii. Besides the land shells 

 three marine species were met with ; these consisted of the upper four or 

 five whorls of a Triton nodiferum, a broken Murex trunculus, and an 

 Euthria cornea. These were of the colour and consistency of chalk, 

 and, though rather far from one another, were found at a uniform depth 

 of 3 feet or so from the surface — i.e. , in the middle of the present layer. 



Stag remains were found in considerable quantities almost all 

 through this layer. Between the two large broken stalactites and the 

 large stalagmite there was a conglomerate of stalagmitic formations and 

 stag bones ; this was in some places over 2 feet thick. 



Between the large stala-gmite and the left side of the cave small 



