232 br. Daubeny on the Geology of Sicily. 
side of the Straits, if I may judge from the specimens I brought 
from the celebrated rock of Scylla, where the slaty character 
prevails. In this rock, the mica is sometimes silvery, some- 
times dark coloured; the quartz and felspar have the ordinary 
characters. These three ingredients are disposed in lamin, 
and the aggregate is penetrated by veins, consisting of quartz 
and mica, in large and distinct concretions. 
The rock also contains imbedded masses, consisting chiefly 
of a mixture of quartz and hornblende. 
The same formation, I believe, extends uninterruptedly 
along the northern coast, as far as Melazzo, where the little 
neck of land projecting into the sea, on which the castle and 
town have been built, is composed of well marked gneiss. 
Near the extremity, however, of the peninsula, on the sum- 
mit of the cliff, and at an elevation of several hundred feet 
above the level of the sea, there is seen resting upon the 
gneiss a compact grayish limestone, containing numerous 
shells, such as Terebratule, Turbinites, and a profusion of 
Madreporites, principally of the turbinated kind. I have 
also specimens which seem to contain those madrepores, with 
finely striated branches, known under the name of June? 
lapide: ; and Mr. Coneybeare (to whom, as well as to our 
curator, Mr. Miller, I feel indebted for naming many of the 
shells which I had collected from this and other localities,) 
has pointed out to me small cylindrical stems, which he con- 
ceives to be the trunks of the Jsis Gorgonia. This discovery 
is Interesting, as Scilla, in his work ‘“*De Corporibus marinis 
lapidescentibus,”’ states his having met with this fossil among 
the hills in the neighbourhood of Messina, in a mineralized 
state, mixed with echini, shells, &c. He found the coral in 
beautiful branches, as well as fragments, the whole surface 
deprived of its colour, although in the thicker fragments, a 
purplish hue might still be found internally. 
It seems that he at first took this-fossil for the leg-bones of 
some animal, but afterwards discovered it to consist of the 
fragments of some jointed coral, bearing a strong resem- 
blance to the knotted coral described by Imperatus, as found 
in the sea near the island of Majorca.* 
The limestone of Melazzo contains imbedded fragments of 
gneiss ; and, at the line of junction with that rock, there is an 
* See Parkinson’s Organic Remains, Vol. Il. p. 72. 
