100 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 4, 



deeply indented by the Bay of Palermo ; west of Capo di Gallo there 

 is a smaller indentation, backed by Carini ; and still further to the 

 west there is the deep Gulf of Castellamare. At the bottom of these 

 indentations the mountains of Hippurite- limestone recede from the 

 coast, forming inland precipitous cliffs or rugged slopes, from the 

 base of which stretch slightly inclined flats of marine Pliocene 

 deposits, which disappear under the sea. These latter form nearly 

 horizontal strata of a calcareo-argillaceous sandy breccia, full of 

 marine shells and fragments of corals, <fec. Philippi identified 209 

 species of Mollusca from this deposit in the neighbourhood of Pa- 

 lermo, the great majority being of living species. The ossiferous 

 caves had been known from remote antiquity, and notices of them 

 occur in Valguarnera, II Mongitore, and other Sicilian historians. 

 The botanist Cupani had figured and identified some of the bones. 

 The author's investigations had been directed to the caverns near 

 Palermo and Carini. At Palermo the littoral pliocene plain, cele- 

 brated for its richness as the " Concha d'Oro," or shell of gold, is 

 from a mile to 1-g- mile broad, and where it abuts against the Hip- 

 purite-rocks is from 180 to 200 feet above the level of the sea. 

 The ancient Pliocene sea-margin is very distinctly seen at this 

 elevation all round the bay, and the ossiferous caverns chiefly occur 

 at from 30 to 50 feet above this level. 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 1200 to 1800 feet above the sea ; some of the 

 heights more inland, such as Monte Griffone and Monte Cuccio, 

 attain a height of upwards of 3000 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 cal- 

 careous infiltration. The interior and back part of the cavern was 

 covered by a layer of light and incoherent argillaceous soil, contain- 

 ing 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, 



