108 Geography, Geology, 



uninhabited ; the plains are generally luxuriant, and covered 

 with vegetation and cattle. Marsh land abounds in places, 

 and there the deadly malaria is found during the hot weather. 

 Nothing can exceed the beauty of the situation, and cultivation 

 of the land about Messina, Catania, Syracuse, Palermo, &c., 

 where nature displays, in exuberance, the fruit of the vine, the 

 olive, the lemon, the orange, and other trees. The most ex- 

 tensive forests or woods are at Etna, Biscari, Caronia, Cor- 

 leone, Gibelmanna, Noto, and Traina. 



Respecting the geology of Sicily, I will add the following 

 outline from Professor Ferrara * : — 



The mountains of Pelorus have for their base granite and 

 other primitive rocks. About these there extends an argilla- 

 ceous schistose seam (clay slate), which succeeds to the granite, 

 to the gneiss, and to the micaceous schistus (mica slate). In 

 some places the argillaceous schisti are bituminous. It is in 

 this formation that the metallic mines of Sicily are situated, 

 and their seams extend themselves sometimes even among the 

 gneiss : they are very rich in silver, lead, and copper. These 

 soils are covered by, and placed in the middle of, the rocks 

 which contain fragments of them : they form many species of 

 aggregate rocks, which have for their cement a substance 

 either argillaceo-ferruginous, or siliceous, or calcareous ; these 

 are evidently of a posterior formation. An immense calcareous 

 deposition covers the whole island. The soils of the first form- 

 ation, from the Faro of Messina to seventy miles towards the 

 central places, disappear ; and, except these, the whole surface 

 of Sicily consists of the intermediate formation, or of the transi- 

 tion of Werner, and of others posterior to it. The aggregate 

 rocks constitute heights, and great tracts of country ; but all 

 are subordinate to the calcareous formation. Few seams of 

 primitive limestone occur amongst the gneiss, and there are 

 some with pieces of mica. This calcareous rock is of a fine 

 grain, grey, or bluish, phosphoric, containing alum and mag- 

 nesia, and has a few remains of marine animals ; the interme- 

 diate (transition) limestone finally covers it, and forms the 

 greatest altitudes and long tracts of country. Upon and often 

 by the side of this limestone we may observe that of a much 

 finer grain, white, of a flinty fracture, and full of large pebbles, 

 a little shining, with a great quantity of ancient marine ani- 

 mals. This secondary formation is more covered with a ter- 

 tiary one, forming a somewhat calcareous tuff composed of the 

 remains of marine animals, united by a weak cement, which is 

 itself formed of minute pieces of the same. This shell lime- 



* See Guida dei Viaggiatori in Sicilia (Paleraio, 1822), p. 13 — 18. 



