482 Dr. A. Smith Woodward — The JBone-beds of Pikermi. 



Mitzopoulos, uncle of the present distinguished Eector of the 

 University of Athens, made a valuable and extensive collection 

 for the Athens Museum, which seems to have remained unnoticed 

 until 1883, when the late Professor Dames, of Berlin, studied it, 

 and wrote a brief account of some unique specimens contained in it.^ 

 By far the most important excavations hitherto made at Pikermi, 

 however, are those which were undertaken by Professor Albert 

 Gaudry, under the auspices of the Paris Academy of Sciences, 

 between 1855 and 1860. These researches made known nearly all 

 the essential facts concerning the extinct mammalian fauna entombed 

 in the Pikermi formation, and led to sevei'al brilliant generalizations 

 first published in Professor Gaudry's well-known work on the 

 geology and fossils of Attica in 1862.^ During the last 40 years 

 only insignificant diggings have been attempted, among them being 

 those of the late Professors Neumayr, of Vienna, and Dames, of 

 Berlin. 



Owing to the permanent mark left by former excavations it was 

 easy to choose sites for the new explorations of the British Museum. 

 Three pits dug in continuation of former workings soon yielded 

 bones, and eventually furnished a very extensive collection. Two 

 trial pits at other points and in slightly different horizons produced 

 nothing except two decayed bone-fragments. Water still occurs 

 even in dry weather a little beneath the bed of the stream ; but the 

 difficulties from this source are now much less than formerly, owing 

 to Mr. Skouses' system of irrigation, by which the flowing stream 

 of the ravine is usually diverted at a point high up in its course. 



The Pikermi formation has already been well described by 

 Professor Gaudry. It consists chiefly of red marl, varied with 

 lenticular masses of rounded pebbles and occasional yellowish sandy 

 layers. Some of the pebble-beds are cemented into hard con- 

 glomerate. The materials are such as might have been derived 

 from the mountain mass of Pentelicon which forms the neighbouring 

 high ground, the marl itself being apparently the detritus of marble 

 or other calcareous rock. The formation is of great extent in Attica, 

 and has only attracted special notice at Pikermi because a stream 

 happens to have cut a deep ravine through it and exposed fine 

 sections of the beds. 



As already observed by Professor Gaudry, the bones at Pikermi 

 occur on two definite horizons, those in the lower bed being less 

 fragile and better preserved than those in the upper bed.^ In two 

 of our new pits where the upper horizon is well exposed, it is 

 subdivided into two distinct layers by a nearly barren deposit of 

 marl from 30 to 45 cm. in thickness. The rotten nature of the bones 

 is partly due to their having once been close to or at the surface, 



^ W. Dames, "Hirsche und Mause von Pikermi in Attika" : Zeitsclir. deutsch. 

 gaol. Ges., 1883, p. 92, pi. v. 



2 A. Gaudry: "Animaux Fossiles et Geologic de I'Attique," Paris, 1862. This 

 work contains references to previous literature. 



^ A. Gaudry, " Resultats des Recherclies faites a Pikermi (Attique), sous les 

 Auspices de I'Academie " : Comptes Eendus, vol. xlii (1856), p. 291. 



