T. F. Jamieson — Inland Seas of the Glacial Period. 199 



large areas of land and fresh-water, and lie thouglit the whole of the 

 evidence pointed to a " fresh- water or perhaps brackish condition 

 of the entire Mediterranean area at that time," "especially as we 

 find these ossiferous caverns mainly upon the margin of its steepest 

 coast-line." ^ 



So abundant were the bones and teeth of Hippopotamus in the 

 Sicilian caves that ship-loads of them were exported for commercial 

 purposes, and, to quote the words of Dr. Falconer, " Countless 

 Hippopotami have been met with in Sicily — literally tens of 

 thousands of two species " {Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 552). 



No one, 1 think, can read the description which Dr. Leith Adams 

 gives of his explorations in Malta without being convinced that the 

 aspect of this island must have been widely different at the time 

 when it was a haunt of Elephants, Hippopotami, and fresh-water 

 Turtles. (See his book, Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and 

 Malta, 1870.) 



As the neighbourhood of Sicily has long been the seat of volcanic 

 disturbance and of movements of the ground, it is quite conceivable 

 that, apart from the changes going on at Gibraltar, a land com- 

 munication might have been established between Italy and Africa 

 during part of the Quaternary period, for submarine ridges at no 

 very great depth stretch across that part of the Mediterranean. This 

 would isolate the eastern part of the basin and allow evapoi'ation to 

 have its effect there, even although the western area was open to the 

 Atlantic. 



The drying up of the Mediterranean would have the effect of 

 uniting most of the islands with the mainland, and thus explain how 

 the animals and plants got into them. In what other way can we 

 account for Foxes being found in Minorca ; Hares, Martens, Deer, 

 Foxes, etc., in Corsica and Sardinia; and such like facts ? This fall in 

 level of the Mediterranean would cause all the rivers entering it to 

 cut deeply through their old deltas, and to form new ones at a much 

 lower level. The Black Sea would also be lowered and converted 

 into a freshwater lake drained by a large river rushing through the 

 Bpsphorus and Dardanelles. 



Messrs. Eamsay and Geikie in their paper on Gibraltar, at p. 538, 

 speculate on what would be " the influence of the physical conditions 

 that would obtain upon a general elevation of the Mediteri'anean 

 area for 1500 feet or thereabout," and go on to say, "We must 

 remember that such a degree of elevation would convert the Mediter- 

 ranean into two salt lakes, the eastern one of which would receive 

 the drainage of several great rivers, while the westeiTi basin would 

 be supplied by no river larger than the Ehone. In this latter basin, 

 therefore, evaporation being much greater than the influx of fresh- 

 water, the level of the inland sea would be gradually lowered and 

 the area of land increased, so that in course of time the Western lake 

 might be reduced to very moderate proportions." 



Supposing the Western lake to have been thus the lower one, 

 which I think is very probable, the effect would have been to cause 



1 Quart. Journ. of the Geol. Soc. vol. xxxiii. p. 291. 



