J. E. Cooke— The Pleistocene Beds of Malta. 207 



a small nut. The rock-fragments lie with their longer axes 

 parallel to the bedding planes of the deposit, and the shells 

 are intact, thus presenting every appearance of having been 

 formed under comparatively quiet conditions. 



It is not, however, persistent throughout all of the deposits in 

 the neighbourhood, but occurs only in those localities where the 

 angle of the slopes, whence the materials were derived, was 

 a moderate one. The rock-fragments have been derived from the 

 Upper Coralline Limestones in the vicinity. Beneath this seam lies 

 another bed of gritty limestone, which is similar in its lithological 

 aspects to the upper members of the series. The materials of which 

 it is composed are rounded, and they are so compactly bound 

 together that freshly fractured surfaces present a homogeneous 

 appearance. This portion of the bed averages three feet in thickness, 

 and it extends along the shore for about a mile. Helices and 

 a minute Cerithium are extremely abundant. Spratt has noted the 

 occurrence of the tests and spines of echinoderms in similar deposits 

 at the head of the bay, but it was not my fortune to meet with any. 

 This series, which I shall call the Upper series, averages about ten 

 feet in thickness. 



Beneath this is the lower portion, which lies unconformably on 

 a bed of brecciated loam, consisting of a heterogeneous assortment 

 of pebbles and angular fragments of limestone disseminated through- 

 out the mass. The loamy matrix is made up of finely comminuted 

 clayey particles intermixed with a large percentage of calcareous 

 rock powder, and an appreciable quantity of ferric oxide. Both in 

 its composition and in its general characters the bed agrees closely 

 with the loam-breccias, to which reference has already been made. 

 It averages about three feet in thickness, and, as it forms the base- 

 ment of the limestone grits, the rapid degradation that it is under- 

 going is causing the equally rapid destruction of the beds that 

 overlie it. The shore-line is therefore strewn with huge masses of 

 " grit," which have broken away from the main upper bed in 

 consequence of the wearing away of these loamy foundations. The 

 bed contains an abundance of land-shells, but they are not so well 

 preserved as in the upper stratum. 



Besides these shore deposits, there are in the bottom of the 

 depression between Kammieh and Melleha, to the west of Torre 

 Hamra, and along the summit of the peninsula of l'Arasc, con- 

 siderable accumulations of loose "grit," the products of the degra- 

 dation of the Pleistocene beds which formerly served as a capping 

 to the Upper Coralline Limestone of the district. Large quantities 

 of it have been scattered by wind action over the Kammieh isthmus : 

 and in places, where the surroundings have been favourable, it has 

 been carried down the slopes on the northern side of the isthmus, 

 and has been formed into terraced beds which are very similar in 

 character to the " grits " around the shores of the bay. 



The adjoining fault terrace in Uied-tal-Mistra is likewise covered 

 with some interesting deposits of Pleistocene age. Throughout its 



