324 Notices of 3Ic)iioirs — D. 31. A. Bate — Caves in Ci/prus. 



An encouraging feature about tlie new recovery is there Is every 

 indication ot" the seam being worked practically free from water. 

 The coal is valuable for household purposes, and will be put upon 

 all the principal markets, tlie pitbank being situated close beside 

 the Cheadle Railway, to which sidings have already been laid down, 

 and the colliery premises thus placed into communication within 

 a very few miles of the North Staifordshire Railway Company's main 

 line between Crewe and Derby. — Colliery Guardian, May 27, 1904. 



II. — On the Ossiferous Cave-Deposits of Cyprus. By 

 DoKOTHY M. A. Bate.^ 



PREVIOUS to 1901 no systematic search of the cave-deposits of 

 Cyprus appears to have been attempted. The geology was 

 studied by M. Albert Gaudry, who published an elaborate v/ork in 

 1862 with a geological map, and Drs. Unger and Kotschy in 1865> 

 also gave a geological map of the island, differing somewhat from 

 their predecessor. 



As long ago as 1700 the Dutch ti-aveller Corneille le Brun (Van 

 Bruyn) published an account of his wanderings in Cyprus and the 

 Levant, and mentions having visited a bed of bones, supposed to be 

 those of saints, not far from the Monastery of Haghios Chrysostomos. 

 A drawing of one of these bones is given, which Dr. Forsyth Major 

 has since shown to be that of Hippopotamus minulus.'- 



The author started in 1901 in expectation of discovering an 

 extinct fauna in this ossiferous breccia, and this expectation wa& 

 amply fulfilled, for no fewer than twelve ossifei'ous caves wer& 

 found, five at Cape Pyla in the south-east and seven on the southern 

 slopes of the Kerynia Hills in the north of the island. 



Two caves (mentioned by General di Cesnola in 1877, at Cape 

 Pyla, as containing human fossilised bones) were first visited by 

 the author. The rock is here composed of Miocene (probably 

 Helvetian) limestone, weathered to a very great extent, and full of 

 marine shells and corals, as well as numerous Echinoids [Glypeaster 

 porlentosHs) , also met with in the Miocene limestones of Malta. 



Here a number of caves were discovered in the cliffs, five of 

 which yielded remains of Hippopotamus minutiis. 



The author then describes these caves in detail. The cave* 

 explored at Cape Pyla were: (1) The Red Cliff Cave; (2) the 

 Great Anonj'mous Cave ; (3) the Small Anonymous Cave ; 

 (4) Haghios Jannos ; (5) Haghios Saronda. This is the cave to 

 which formerly pilgrimages were made and candles burned in 

 honour of the sacred remains of saints. 



The cave-deposits of the Kerynia Hills are of uncertain geological 

 age, no fossils having been obtained from the limestone rock of 

 which they are chiefly composed. Professor Gaudry concludes that 

 the rock is of Cretaceous age, and, therefore, the oldest sedimentary 

 deposit in the island. The seven caves discovered were all on the 



' Beius^ the abstract of a paper read before the Roval Society, Juue 9th, 1904. 

 Commumcated by Dr. H. Woodward, F.E.S., F.G.S. 

 - Proc. Zool. Soc, Juue, 1902. 



