Recent Breccia. 29 



Dirk Hartog's Island : and a compound of tliis kind, replete 

 with shells, not far, if at all, different from existing species, 

 fills up the hollows in most of the older rocks of Sicily; and 

 is described as occurring, in several places, at very consider- 

 able heights above the sea. Thus, near Palermo, it consti- 

 tutes hills some hundred feet in height : — near Girgenti, all the 

 most elevated spots are crowned with a loose stratum of the 

 same kind ; and the heights near Castro Giovanni, said to be 

 2880 feet above the sea, are probably composed of it. But 

 although the concretions of the interior in Sicily much resem- 

 ble those of the shore, it is still doubtful whether the former 

 be not of more ancient formation ; and if they contain num- 

 mulites, they would probably be referred to the epoch of the 

 beds within the Paris basin. 



The looser breccia of Monte Pelegrino, in Sicily, is very 

 like the less compacted fragments of shells from Bermuda, de- 

 scribed by Captain Vetch, and already referred to* : — and the 

 rock in both these cases, nearly approaches to some of the 

 coarser oolites of England. 



The resemblance pointed out by M. Prevostf, of the speci- 

 mens of recent breccia from New Holland, in the museum at 

 the Jardin du Roi, to those of St. Hospice near Nice, is con- 

 firmed by the detail given by Mr. Allan in his sketch of the 

 geology of that neighbourhood % ; in which the perfect pre- 

 servation of the shells, and their near approach to those of the 

 adjoining sea at the present day, are particularly mentioned ; 

 and it is inferred that the date of the deposit which affords 

 them, is anterior to that of the conglomerate containing the 

 bones of extinct quadrupeds, likewise found in that country. 

 M. Brongniart also, who examined the place himself, men- 

 tions the recent accumulation * which occurs at St. Hospice, 

 about sixty feet above the present level of the sea,' as contain- 

 ing marine shells in a scarcely fossile state, (' a 'pe.inefossiles ;') 

 and he describes the mass in which they occur, as belonging 

 to " a formation still more recent than the upper marine beds 

 of the environs of Paris §." 



The geological period indicated by these facts, being pro- 

 bably more recent than the tertiary beds containing nummu- 

 lites, and generally than the Paris and London strata, accords 

 with the date which has hitherto been assigned to the ' crag ' 

 beds of Suffolk, Essex, and Norfolk || : but later observations 



render 



* These specimens are in the Museum of the Geological Society. 



+ Prevost MSS. See Detailed list of specimens. 



\ Trans, of the R. Soc. of Edinb. vol. viii. 1818, p. 427, &c— See also 

 the previous publications of M.Risso. Journal des Mines, torn, xxxiv. &c. 



§ Brongniart, in Cuvier's Ossemens Fossiles, 2d. Edit. vol. ii. p. 427. 



|| Conybeare and Phillips' " Outlines," &c. p. 1 1. — Geol. Trans, i. p. 327, 



