SICILIAN CAVES. 261 



country must have been very different from what they are 

 now ; but I cannot do better than quote Dr. Falconer's own 

 summary of his observations in this case : 



" The vast number of Hippopotami implied that the phy- 

 sical condition of the country must have been greatly different, 

 at no very distant geological period, from what obtains now. 

 He considered that all deposits above the bone breccia had 

 been accumulated up to the roof by materials washed in from 

 above, through sinuous crevices or flues in the limestone, and 

 that the uppermost layer, consisting of the breccia of shells, 

 bone-splinters, siliceous objects, burnt clay, bits of charcoal, 

 and hyaena coprolites, had been cemented to the roof by 

 stalagmitic infiltration. The entire condition of the large 

 fragile Helices proved that the effect had been produced by 

 the tranquil agency of water, as distinct from any tumultuous 

 action. There was nothing to indicate that the different 

 objects in the roof breccia were other than of contemporaneous 

 origin : subsequently a great physical alteration in the con- 

 tour, altering the flow of superficial water and of the sub- 

 terranean springs, changed all the conditions previously 

 existing, and emptied out the whole of the loose incoherent 

 contents, leaving only the portions agglutinated to the roof. 

 The wreck of these ejecta was visible in the patches of 

 'ceneri impastati/ containing fossil bones, below the mouth 

 of the cavern. That a long period must have operated in 

 the extinction of the hyaena, cave-lion, and other fossil 

 species, is certain, but no index remains for its measurement. 

 The author would call the oareful attention of cautious 

 geologists to the inferences that the Maccagnone Cave was 

 filled up to the roof within the human period, so that a 

 thick layer of bone -splinters, teeth, landshells, hyaenas' 

 coprolites, and human objects, was agglutinated to the roof 

 by the infiltration of water holding lime in solution. That 

 subsequently, and within the human period, such a great 



