﻿288 A Neic Suhmarine Volcano. 



the fact, that although in the comparatively narrow and steep 

 valleys traversing this formation, there is but littl-e gravel, and no 

 implements have been found, yet on the uplands numerous and well- 

 made flint implements have been collected, from what M, Belgrand 

 calls the hunting stations. 



It may seem strange that if these pits really do present the 

 similarity to Grimes Graves which I have supposed, the idea should 

 not have occurred to the French geologists ; they may never have 

 heard of our pits ; but I find it stated that in the Memoires de la 

 Societe des Sciences, etc., du Hainaut, Annee 1866-7, published at 

 Mons, 1868, there is a paper, relating to similar ancient works, by 

 MM. Briart, Cornet and De la Haie (Eapport sur les Decouvertes 

 geologiques, etc., faites a Si^iennes en 1867), and that those works 

 were known as long ago as 1842. I have not seen this article, and 

 can find no account of it in my books. 



If attention has not previously been called to the prima facie 

 possibility that these pits in Champagne are the work of manu- 

 facturers of flint implements, perhaps you will consider the matter 

 of sufScient importance to give it a place in your Magazine. The 

 description is too loose and general to be a ground for anything more 

 than suggestion and inquiry. Henkt Norton. 



21, Unthanks Road, Norwich, April 20th, 1877. 



A New Submarine Volcano ? in the Mediterranean. — An ex- 

 citing story is going the round of the London journals, calling 

 attention to " a singular accident which lately befell the steam- 

 ship Knight Templar, 1,550 tons gross register, from Cardiff to 

 Bombay with coal. When off the island of Galita, near the Gulf 

 of Tunis, and, according to the Admiralty Chart, being in a thousand 

 fathoms of water, she suddenly received a violent shock, and was 

 immediately surrounded by a seething mass of foam. Being run 

 ashore, and ultimately examined, it was found that at a distance of 

 15 feet from the stem of the vessel some 10 feet of her keel had 

 been torn out in a peculiar manner, while tbe after part of the ship's 

 bottom had also been seriously injured. Altogether the character 

 of the damage done to the ship leads the writer, a Board of Trade 

 surveyor, to the conclusion that the ship's hull had been struck by a 

 submarine volcanic eruption, a theory much strengthened by the 

 well-known character of the locality." 



Scrope long since pointed out that the volcanic line of disturbance 

 extends from Calabria and Sicily in a south-westerly direction 

 towards the African coast, and embraces the volcanic island of 

 Pantellaria, and the sunken volcanic island of Ferdinanda, to Cape 

 Bon, the eastern promontory of the Bay of Tunis, linking Sicily 

 with Africa ; and that the intervening tract is knoion to he very 

 slialloio (" Volcanos," p. 345). 



Is it not possible that a simlcen rock was the cause of the " Good 

 Templar's " scrape ? Anyhow he had a narrow escape, whether struck 

 by a volcanic bomb under water, or scraped on a part of the old ridge 

 dividing the Eastern and Western basins of the Mediterranean. We 

 hope the Admiralty will investigate this matter thoroughly. 



