J. H. Cooke— The Pleistocene Beds of Malta. 209 



a patch extending over an area of one and a half square miles offers 

 some excellent sections ; and between Marsa Scirocco and Delimara 

 Fort there are extensive beds of alluvial material lining the shores 

 and attaining thicknesses of from six to ten feet. 



The elephant bed in the Benhisa gap has been described in detail 

 by Dr. Leith Adams, and therefore needs no further remark from 

 me. On the north-eastern shore-line there are several interesting 

 patches deserving of notice. 



The valley of St, Julians, St. George's creek, and the cliffs at 

 Sliema and Ghar-id-dud are lined with accumulations of roughly 

 bedded loams and angular debris. At Sliema these accumulations 

 assume the character of a friable ferruginous loam with hard, 

 calcareous, concretionary masses interspersed throughout ; or as 

 masses of agglomerate made up of rock-fragments bound together 

 with a compact ferruginous cement and interstratified with stalagmitic 

 layers that often attain a foot in thickness. 



I will now briefly summarize the preceding details. The beds 

 may be grouped in three classes — 



I. The valley loams and breccias. 

 II. The agglomerates which are found along the coast-lines and 



fault-terraces. 

 III. The ossiferous deposits in the caves and fissures. 



The cave deposits have already been described in detail by the 

 late Dr. Leith Adams and myself. 1 I need not, therefore, make any 

 further reference to them here. The valley deposits may be sub- 

 divided into the residual and the alluvial beds, which are found on 

 the higher slopes of the plains and plateaux, and the diluvial deposits, 

 which cover the sides and beds of the gorges and valleys. Of the 

 former of these subdivisions, the beds at Dueira, Giurdan, Gebel 

 Ciantar, Imtarfa, Nadur, Tal Mistra, and Tal Asiri are prominent 

 examples. The structural facies of these beds may be thus 

 summed up : — 



1. A capping of indurated limestone made up of the finer residual 



products of the underlying layer. 



2. Unstratified layers of angular and subangular rock-fragments. 



The rock-fragments have always been derived from the 

 Miocene formations in the neighbourhood. 



3. Thin interstratified layers of loam and stalagmite. The loams 



often present evidences of oblique lamination. 

 In the districts where the angle of the slope is not a high one, as 

 at Imtarfa and Tal Mistra, the basement layer consists of a homo- 

 geneous, highly calcareous loam ; but where the angle of the slope 

 is a high one the loam is intermixed with angular fragments of 

 rocks, and it assumes a roughly stratified appearance. Where the 



1 Adams, Leith A.L., "Maltese Bone Caves" : Geol. Mag., Vol. I, p. 140. 



idem. " Fossil Elephants of Malta" : Geol. Mac;., Vol. II, p. 448. 



idem. " Maltese Fossiliferous Caves " : Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1886. 



idem. " Nile Valley and Malta." Edinburgh, 1870. 



Cooke, J. H., " The Har Dalam Cavern, Malta " : Proe. Royal Soc, vol. liv, 1893. 



DECADE IV. VOL. III. NO. V. 1* 



