544 OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF SICILY. 



Some of them, such as the ' Grotta di Belliemi,' are at a 

 higher level. The caves are studded all round the bay. The 

 Hippurite-limestone hills skirting the coast are here from 

 1,200 to 1,800 feet above the sea ; some of the heights more 

 inland, such as Monte Griffone and Monte Cuccio, attain a 

 height of upwards of 3,000 feet. 



The best known of the caves is the ' Grotta di San Ciro,' 

 or ' Mare Dolce,' at the foot of Monte Griffone, about two 

 miles from Palermo, and 50 feet above the Pliocene terrace. 

 This cave had been described by the Abbe Scina in a special 

 report, and after him by Turnbull-Christie and by Hoffmann. 

 It is about 130 feet long, 50 feet high, and 30 feet wide in 

 the middle. The cave had been hollowed out into a well- 

 marked, irregular, basin-shaped depression near the mouth, 

 where obscurely stratified and other deposits occur to a depth 

 of 30 feet in the aggregate. On the bottom was found a 

 thin layer of sand, in which Philippi detected 44 species 

 of 23 genera of marine Mollusca. Above this there is an 

 enormous mass of bone-breccia, consisting of closely-crammed 

 bones, cemented into a hard rock by an argillaceo-calcareous 

 concrete matrix, and forming a thickness of 20 feet ; above 

 this a stratum of stones and bones, more sparingly mixed 

 and similarly cemented, to a depth of 2 or 3 feet ; then a 

 layer of ' Lastroni,' or blocks of limestone, to a depth of 

 6 feet ; and above all a layer of ochreous earth and rock- 

 splinters to a depth of 1 foot. The bones in this breccia are 

 mineralized by calcareous infiltration. The interior and back 

 part of the cavern was covered by a layer of light and inco- 

 herent argillaceous soil, containing an enormous quantity of 

 bones, chiefly of Hippopotami, nearly devoid of gelatine, and in 

 the ordinary friable condition of grave-bones. The relations 

 of this deposit were never accurately observed, hi consequence 

 of the rubbish of the excavation-operations having been 

 thrown up in a great mass of talus extending backwards to 

 near the roof of the cavern. 



In 1829 there was a great demand for bones for the manu- 

 facture of lamp-black for sugar-refining. The superficial 

 bones of the San Ciro cavern were collected in large quan- 

 tities and exported to England and Marseilles. Professor 

 Ferrara states, that within the first six months 400 quintals 

 were procured from San Ciro. The great majority belonged 

 to two species of Hippopotamus. In one heap, out of several 

 shiploads sent to Marseilles, De Christol, an able palaeontolo- 

 gist, had found that in a weight of thirty quintals all the 

 bones belonged to Hippopotamus, with the exception of six 

 derived from Bos and Gervus. Dr. Falconer had examined in 

 detail the San Ciro collection in the University of Palermo, 



