J 





V, 



,"i»es, 



C;. - 





V 



vy<k5 



of Pr:i..i4 



f 



;t.. 1.: 



i t 



1 



* H-; 



^ 'of the a* 



oil 



: -b (i D 



v« t 



ft. 



1 iteration;^ 



of '"Til 



1* 



T 



.4 ^^'^ 



Ch. XXVI.] MAEINE STEATA OF NEWEE PLIOCENE DATE 



5 



pliical miles distant in a straight line. At onr feet lies 

 the allnvial plain of Catania (k) 6 miles broad^ through 

 which the Simeto runs^ and which is bounded on the north 



^^Prr- "' ^J ^^ undulating country e^ e^ composed for the most part 



of a marine tertiary deposit of Newer Pliocene age. 



The district composed of it near Catania which is provin- 

 cially called ' Terra Forte/ must have emerged from beneath 

 the sea at a period of very modern date geologically speaking ; 

 for not only are almost all the fossil shells included in the 

 clays of recent species^ but the argillaceous beds themselves 

 are capped at the height of nearly 1^000 feet by two deposits, 

 in one of which near the sea all the shells are of living species, 

 while the other consists of rounded pebbles of limestone and 

 other rocks evidently once brought down from the interior by 

 the Simeto and deposited in its delta, which delta was after- 

 wards uplifted together with the subjacent clay as well as the 

 neighbouring mass of Etna and the sea-coast at its base. 

 In the old alluvium here adverted to the bones of elephants 

 and other extinct mammalia have been found at several 

 points. The line h^ i^ expresses the level at which the 

 marine Newer Pliocene formation crons out irreoj'ularlv from 



streams 



mor 



more from view. 



600 feet, but at one 



Sometimes it cannot be traced hig 



miles 



Catania, the marine clays have been detected at the height 



» 



Mediterr 



At that point and along the adjoining coast, as at Aci Castello 

 and at Trezza opposite the Cyclopean islands, and at Nizzeti 

 a mile and a half north-west of Trezza, the fossiliferous claj^s 

 are associated with contemporaneous basaltic and other 



Igneous 



most ancient monuments of volcanic 



action within the region of Etna. 



By these eruptions the 

 foundations of the great volcano may be said to have been 

 laid in the sea when the present site of Etna was a bay of the 



Medite 



The fossil shells therefore found in these 



clays are of great interest in settling the chronology of the 

 older part of the mountain. Out of 65 species which I 

 myself collected in 1828 M. Deshayes determined 4 to be 



