552 



OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF SICILY. 



Having this large group of genera, we may say that we have re- 

 covered in this cave an entire fossil Sicilian Fauna. 



I have also found in these two caves a large quantity of flint imple- 

 ments (' de silex en armes ') ; and it is remarkable that we do not 

 generally see them but where there are great deposits of bones of Deer 

 — never otherwise. Lastly there occur coprolites of Carnivores, and 

 another kind of coprolite, which, I suppose, belonged to herbivorous 

 animals. 



I have been fortunate also in detecting teeth of Carnivora in the 

 Cave of Olivella (' la grotte de l'Olivella '). 



The necessity of having means of comparison at hand induces me to 

 prosecute the study of these cave-bones at Florence, where I shall have 

 the assistance of M. Meneghini. Afterwards I hope to publish the 

 results of the exploration of these caves, and to describe them and the 

 more interesting of the objects obtained. 



II. — Extract of a Letter from Dr. Falconer to Capt. Spratt, C.B. 



Bated July 21, 18G0. 



A Sicilian friend of mine, Barone Francesco Anca, who accompanied 

 me in my cave explorations, followed them up after I left, and in the 

 cave of San Teodoro, near S. Agata, west of Cape Orlando, on the north 

 coast, he discovered molar teeth, which prove to be of the existing 

 African Elephant, 3 and about twenty jaws, upper and lower, of the 

 Hycena crocuta, or spotted Hyasna of the Cape of Good Hope. 4 Here, 

 then, we have two existing African mammalia occurring in Sicily, and 

 proving beyond all question that Sicily within the Pleistocene period 

 was connected by land with Africa. The severance of the island from 

 the continent must have been quite as modern an event as the separation 

 of England from France. The continuity of the land evidently lay in 

 Admiral Smyth's ' Adventure Bank ' and ' Skerki Shoal.' Smyth's 

 section of the bank shows how very shallow the soundings are. There 

 must have been continuous land from Eas Addar (Capo Bono) through 

 Sicily on as far as Messina, with a distinct eastern and western basin. 

 It now becomes of great interest to ascertain whether the Strait of 

 Messina was then an open channel, or closed up by land like 'Adventure 

 Bank.' A great many complex problems are involved in the case. 

 You know what countless Hippopotami have been met with in Sicily — 

 literally tens of thousands, of two species. Your remains from the 

 Krendi Cave are identical with one of the Sicilian species, and it is clear 



1 The statement at page 250 of the 

 paper on E. Columbi, written two years 

 after the publication of this letter, ren- 

 ders it doubtful if this was really E. 

 antiquus. — [Ed.] 



2 See antea, p. 283.— [Ed.] 



3 Extract from Letter to M. Lartet, 

 Nov. 1, 1864.— 'The San Teodoro speci- 

 mens are certainly of the African Ele- 

 phant.' — [Ed.] 



4 See antea, p. 465. — [Ed.] 



